


Dark Spring

by nerdrumple



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Ain't gonna give it away in the tags, F/M, Marriage of Convenience, Mystery, Rumbelle Christmas in July 2020 (Once Upon a Time), Spooky Circumstances, just a fun spoopy ride really, nothing too out there or frightening, with dirty sex so mind the rating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:01:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25509412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdrumple/pseuds/nerdrumple
Summary: Mr. Gold proposes, and Belle accepts, but it’s not what she expected. He’s cold and withdrawn, despite her best efforts. But a terrible accident changes everything, leading to strange consequences, beautiful consequences, and she can’t quite bring herself to accept their fate, no matter how perfect.
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Comments: 77
Kudos: 102





	1. The First Wedding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mareyshelley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mareyshelley/gifts).



> Surprise, [mareyshelley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mareyshelley)!! I can't believe I got to be your Santa! Enjoy this beast of a fic, I totally went overboard, because that's what I do when I love you. Happy Rumbelle Christmas in July!
> 
> Also, HUGE thank you to [maplesyrup](%E2%80%9C) for all your help with this fic. For helping me carry on when I thought I couldn’t, for shushing my doubts, for taking time out of your life to bother with the silly thing that is mine. Love you babe ❤️

_ **The First Wedding** _

**One**

“So. You’re the one who bit.”

He said it through his teeth, though he wasn’t smiling, and he held an umbrella, though it wasn’t raining. It was chilly and gray outside, and she huddled into her coat as she walked through his garden and joined him on his bench. 

She wished this meeting was happening inside. The large salmon Victorian he lived in looked thrilling, inviting, warm. Nothing like the man waiting for her on the drab stone. But the invitation had indicated his garden, his outstretched hand indicated the stone seat beside him, so that’s where she sat.

“Bit,” she repeated, “like I’m the fish, and you’re the hook.”

He removed his sunglasses, and why was he wearing such dark things during this dark day? He gave her a once over that made her swallow, made her feel stupid for speaking.

“That’s exactly what this is, Miss French. Don’t tell yourself otherwise. Did you tell anyone you were coming?” he asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

He angled his umbrella over the both of them, a sweet gesture, though his face didn’t read anything charming or gallant.

“Jefferson explained everything to you?” he asked.

“. . . did Jefferson explain everything to you?” she asked.

“Your father’s debt forgiven if you follow through with marriage to me. Yes.”

“The worm you lured me with,” she smiled, sad thing. “And you agree?”

He smiled back at her, finally, though she didn’t like the look of it. “Do you?”

“We keep talking in questions,” she said.

He sighed. “If you don’t agree, I don’t agree. And we have no need to keep talking, in questions or otherwise.”

She bit her lip. This whole thing was happening faster and colder than she thought it would. She hadn’t expected a man in need of a green card to get down on one knee, but something better than the clipped tone he was using would have been nice.

“Yes. I agree,” she said.

“Good,” he said again. “Consent’s out of the way, but we’re not settled yet. Show me your documents, please.”

She pulled out what he’d asked for, the papers and proof necessary to show she’d been born to an American mother on American soil, despite an accent that betrayed her formative Australian upbringing. Her mother was buried back in Sydney, her father trying and failing to get on with life in the town his true love had been born in.

He scrutinized her papers for several minutes, eventually making a hum of satisfaction.

“Good,” he said a final time, his favorite word for this exchange, and handed her papers back to her. “Does the 5th work for you?”

It was only a week away. Too fast, too quick. But she didn’t bother to pull out her phone to look at her calendar, just pulled up her father’s sad face behind her eyes. 

“Yes,” she said.

“Good. I’ll have the contract delivered to you tonight. Review it, sign it, and I’ll schedule our date at the courthouse.”

Too fast! Too quick! “Don’t we, um,” she stumbled, “won’t there be an interview? Don’t we need to … know each other? A little better? Be able to answer questions?”

He waved his hand. “I have a contact. We won’t have to jump any hoops. I just need to provide a bride, provide a marriage certificate.”

“You have a … contact? At immigration?”

He sighed. “Yes. They …” and his hand played in the air, looking for the words. “... owe me a favor. This is as far as they can get me. For this to work I just need to provide,” and his hand played in the air again, gesturing towards her. “You,” he finished.

“I just need to … exist?” she asked.

That smile again, the one she didn’t like. “A flesh and blood bride, yes. Believe me, I already explored the kind that exists on paper alone.”

Her mouth opened and closed, tongue drying, unsure how to respond.

They were silent for a moment. He nodded needlessly, and started to rise, umbrella and kind gesture gone.

“Should I wear a dress?” she fumbled, grasping for anything.

He turned, faced her. “I don’t see why not.”

She bit her lip again. “Will you at least call me Belle?”

He seemed to sense her fumbling, seemed to care about it. His mouth shifted into a frown, somehow warmer than any of the smiles he’d worn during their brief exchange. 

“Belle,” he repeated solidly. 

It was her turn to nod needlessly, her turn to rise. She stuffed her hands into her pockets again, tried to think of something else to say, before this was all said and done and she went feeling like an idiot for signing her life away.

“Can we at least … I’d like to know you, a bit of you, please. Just in case … what if there is an interview? We should be prepared. Don’t you think?”

He sighed again, nodded. “I can have some basic information provided to you. Go ahead and provide the same to me. We can work on a narrative later, create a simple relationship back story, if you’d like.”

“I would,” she said.

He nodded, and they fell silent again. She watched him, tried to return his eye contact, but the longer she looked at him the more it seemed like he wasn’t really looking at her at all.

“May I have your first name?” she asked.

That seemed to wake him from his gaze, rouse him to agitation. “When you sign the contract,” he said.

She shrunk back from his words, bristled. “I will,” she said, taking his clipped reply as his dismissal, and started her way back down his garden path.

When she reached his garden gate she heard him grumble, heard him reprimand himself in some way. Perhaps she did, perhaps she didn’t, but whatever noise he’d made had caused him to make his way down the path towards her.

“Belle,” he called out, and she turned.

His face looked sad, and his eye contact seemed to really see her, now. “I’m glad it was you.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Who bit. I’d hoped it’d be you.”

She studied him. It was such a warm thing to say through a mouth so drawn, eyes so terrible. He didn’t seem glad at all, and she frowned. “Why?”

He stared at her a long time before replying.

“You were the last one to see Bae.”

Her eyes widened. Of course; she’d been waiting for him to bring it up. She swallowed. “I thought … I was surprised when Jefferson approached me. Because I thought you’d want to leave Storybrooke. After what happened.”

“No, Belle,” he said, voice gaining itself. “That’s why I so desperately need to stay.”

Her mouth opened again, opened at the way he looked at her, the way his brows had furrowed, the way his eyes had grown all the more terrible.

She felt a piece of his garden open underneath her, felt herself fall for the way he was looking at her. “I’ll sign the contract,” she assured him, unsure of any other words that would soothe him.

He nodded, let his eyes fall from her, and the ground replaced itself under her feet. She blinked away the feeling, heard him repeat something again about having the contract sent over tonight, and he bid her goodbye. 

He walked up his garden path to his warm home, the one she hadn’t been invited into, and would this deal even allow her to live inside it after he called her wife?

“I’ll sign,” she said again, watching him walk. Small, to herself, to his roses, his peonies, the gray sky he’d protected her from with his umbrella.

“I’ll sign,” she said, and walked back home, dreaming of the forest, the dark spring, and the lost boy so desperately missed by his father.

  
  


**Two**

He’d sent the contract that night, like he’d promised. She’d signed, like she promised.

He sat across from her, now, ignoring the dinner she’d made for them, humble meal in her humble apartment. He was too busy flipping through the contract, nodding and humming at changes she’d requested, marking passages with a pen, fiddling with his glasses. 

She liked his glasses; hadn’t seen him wear them before. A reading pair sitting quaint on the edge of his nose, and she liked his nose too. She liked all of him, the whole look, she realized, and wondered if he liked the whole look of her. 

“More wine?” she asked, and he gave a small nod without glancing at her.

She made her way back to the kitchen, grabbed the wine bottle, made her way to his side. The smell of his cologne caught her, a sharp spice combined with something floral, and she tried to blink away the warmth it gave her.

She hadn’t lit candles, hadn’t put on any music. When Jefferson had first approached her with Gold’s proposition, there had been a small part of her that wondered if candles and music would be a part of her future, if this simple agreement would one day melt into whispered confessions, a shared bed. The man in front of her, distant and buried in the papers in front of him, didn’t seem to be harboring any such fantasies, so she tried to let them go, tried to dismiss his scent, tried to refill his glass without trembling.

“This is reasonable,” he said, after she’d reseated across from him. “I’ll accommodate your changes.”

She nodded. “How’s your food?”

He blinked, seemed to remember the plate in front of him. “Delicious,” he said, though he hadn’t taken a bite.

“I take it you’d rather I not prepare meals for you. Once we’re married.”

He sighed, picked up his fork. “You’re welcome to do what you like, but I do have a cook on hand.” He took a bite and blinked again, making a noise of assent. “Hmm. This is actually quite good.”

She gave him a thin smile. “Everything is in order, then?”

“Yes,” he said, taking another bite. “Your father’s debt will be forgiven, your price in exchange for mine.”

She watched him eat in silence, her meal finished ages ago. The motion of his hands and mouth were pretty, and she looked away.

“We’ll need to discuss a move-in date.”

“Move in?” she asked.

“The west side of the house has a bedroom, library, a small green room. All for your use, if you’d like.”

She nearly gasped. She’d be a part of his salmon home, after all. The idea was thrilling and terrifying at once. Her apartment felt sadder, suddenly. Humbler.

He paused at her mulling silence. “Of course, nothing will be official until you say ‘I do.’”

“Of course,” she echoed.

He reached down, grasping for another folder that he passed to her. “In here you’ll find my … basic information.”

She felt herself alight, eager to get a real glimpse into him, finally, and opened the folder to find a spreadsheet, neatly organized. One word answers to simple information; place of birth, birthday, favorite color, book, film, drink, etc. 

She started to frown as she scanned. _Casablanca. War and Peace_. The answers seemed bland, basic. The kind of things you’d expect from a quick Google search of ‘man who likes bourbon.’ Fabricated, easy, for the sole purpose of her memorizing them.

“Is your favorite color really blue?” she asked.

He hesitated, reaching for his wine, then gave a brief nod.

“I’ve never seen you wear it.”

He shrugged. “Your eyes are blue.”

She felt her cheeks redden. “Is that supposed to be romantic?”

“For the purpose of this deal, yes.”

She closed the folder. A huge future lay ahead of her and it was feeling heavier by the minute. She would do anything for her father; she would let a man propose his marriage of convenience, let him offend with reluctance to eat her meals. But she would also do something, however small, for herself.

“I had hoped,” she said, smoothing the folder over her lap, “that we could do this more organically.”

“Organically?”

“Talking,” she said. 

He sighed, took a sip of wine. “I take it you didn’t prepare a folder for me?”

“No,” she said.

He sighed again. “I like having information in front of me. So I can review it, rehearse it.”

“And I can prepare a folder for you. But I’d still like to talk.”

He took another sip of wine, staring at her evenly. “Well. What’s your favorite color?”

“Am I supposed to say brown?” she said, folding her arms. “For the purpose of this deal?”

He set his wine down, pushed his chair back. He ran a hand over his face, leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands together.

“We talked about this,” he said. “I’m the hook, you’re the fish. Marriage in exchange for debt forgiven. That’s all this is, Belle.”

“I know, Gold, I’m just. I’m surprised you don’t want to take better precautions.”

“I told you --”

“I know what you told me. I understand you have a contact, I understand you aren’t anticipating us jumping through any ‘hoops.’ I understand that you’d like this to be as clean and quick of a deal as possible. But … I’m agreeing to commit fraud with you. I’m agreeing to … pretend, in front of my friends and family, that I’m in a relationship with you, one that has led us into marriage. So, please. Can’t I at least know you? A part of you?”

“A part?”

“Yes.”

He ran his hand over his face again, set his elbows further into his knees. It took him a long moment to think, to speak.

“I have a tattoo,” he eventually said.

“A tattoo?” she said, brows rising.

“Yes. On my right shoulder. A lizard.”

Her mouth opened, wanting to laugh, wanting to gasp, but she kept her shock to herself.

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded, looking at the floor. “And you? Any tattoos, piercings, scars I should be made aware of?”

“A rose,” she said. “On my hip.”

He gave a small smile. “Also acquired when you were drunk in your 20s?”

“How else?” she smiled in return. And for a brief moment, she felt better. Her future, a bit lighter.

“Dinner was lovely,” he said, rising, and she rose too. “I’ll finish getting everything in order, keep you updated. We have big changes ahead of us and I appreciate your efforts to … make this work.”

She went to retrieve his coat. After staring at their coats where they hung on her entryway hooks side by side, she grabbed both of them.

“May I walk with you? Do you mind?”

His brows raised, but he shook his head. “Not at all.”

The night was crisp, the stars just visible beyond the light of the streetlamps. They said nothing as they strode together in companionable silence. She realized they were making their way towards his shop rather than his home, and she wondered how many late nights he spent there.

“I think … I think this will work,” he said, bidding her goodbye, heading into his shop. “I think this will end up working nicely.” 

“Yes,” she said, hand up in a wave. “Goodnight, Silas.”

She saw the muscles in his back tense, and he turned back abruptly, giving her a look.

“It was in your folder,” she explained. “Should I not … ?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” he mumbled, turning away from her, turning into his shop again. “It’s fine. Goodnight.”

She stood at the edge of the walk leading into his shop, hand still in the air from the wave she’d offered him, other hand fisted in her coat pocket. She lowered her wave down, watched his shadow disappear into the recesses of his shop, the man who tensed when she said his name, after such a hopeful declaration for their future. 

“Silas,” she said again, quietly, to herself, and left.

The night felt eased, once his presence was no longer beside her. She took a big breath in, let the chill fill her lungs, let it back out again. She didn’t like this, this eased pressure. She wished it was the opposite, that his company would offer some kind of fellow feeling in this scheme they were committing to. Her future, big heavy thing in front of her, may have felt lighter, now, but it was still so untwined from him. If only he were interested in getting tangled, twisted. 

The streetlamps thinned, and she came upon the long curve of the walk that bordered the forest. How late was it? she wondered. She stopped, and stared down the path that led inside, thick pines hollowing a long, black line in front of her. 

The spring lay this way. Overflowing and abundant during rainstorms, a more manageable gurgle during sun. She used to visit it frequently, used to love walking down the path that led to it, the small glen surrounding, the stillness it offered. Of course she would happen upon the path now, she thought. All these years, of course this would be their first reunion.

She could see, just several feet ahead, the small rope that marked off the path as closed, the sign that read _No Trespassing!_ in white and red. Coated in dirt and age, but there.

 _Danger_ , the sign really said. The dirt and age only emphasized it. Danger; she knew that now, and she’d known it then. Bae had known it too, when she’d seen him there, the night he disappeared.

And she hadn’t been back since. No one had.

  
  


**Three**

Belle knocked on Gold’s shop door early the next morning, sun still rising and door still locked, open sign unilluminated. His shadow approached, spying her through the blinds, chin dipping in recognition, and he let her in.

“For you,” she said, holding up a folder. “With my ‘basic information.’ Thought I’d drop it off on my way to work.”

“Thank you,” he said, surprise on his face.

“I understand if you don’t want to provide me with an, erm, updated folder. Of your information. But eventually, I’d like .... a more accurate one.”

He raised a brow, held up the folder she’d given him. “Is this accurate?”

“It is.”

He nodded. “In time. The wedding is tomorrow, so my current folder will suffice.” 

She nodded, expecting his response would be as much. When she didn’t immediately leave, fumbling her hands together and staring at his tie, he furrowed his eyes again. 

“Was there something else you wanted?”

“There was.”

She studied his face, the surprise she’d inspired at her arrival this morning, the furrow she created in it now. She hoped it wouldn’t knock down her courage. She put a hand forward, tentatively reaching for him, and placed her hand inside of his. His surprise deepened, and his mouth opened though he didn’t speak.

She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed it in return.

“We’re getting married tomorrow. I thought,” she started, “along with … our small strides in getting to know each other, we should become comfortable with small bits of physical affection. Holding hands is pretty standard.”

He scoffed, giving a laugh. “I suppose you’re right,” he acquiesced, giving her hand one last squeeze before releasing it. “Are you expecting a kiss then, too? At the courthouse?”

Her eyes widened. “I mean. A peck, maybe.”

He leaned down. A quick, dry brush of his lips against hers, gone before she could truly respond. She felt her cheeks heat, then a surge of embarrassment, hoping he wouldn’t see the way she’d reddened. 

“Thank you,” she said, unsure of what else to say.

He gave a laugh again, smaller this time. “I’m not an affectionate man, Belle.”

“I know,” she said, quiet. 

“I appreciate your efforts to …” and he thought a moment, retrieving the phrase he’d used the night before, “make this work. Thank you for the folder.”

They bid one another goodbye, and she exited his shop with a tinkling of bells to start her day. Passed the library, not yet her destination. 

She clenched her hand while she walked along the street, the one that had held his. Brought it up and touched her lips where he’d given her his quick, sudden, dry kiss. She had come to his shop this morning to move whatever-this-was forward, if only by inches, but his kiss had somehow moved it back.

She’d never been in love before, and she wasn’t in love now. She wasn’t entertaining wild fantasies. But his kiss still stung, in its own way. It felt like a strange promise that she’d never be in love, ever, and no one would ever be in love with her. It made a fury rise in her, a hurt.

When she got to the path, to the forest, she took pride in hopping over the sign, the rope. Stupid things weren’t enough to keep anyone out, not really. It was the stories that kept everyone at bay, the sorrow that surrounded the path, the spring, the forest. But they were her stories, weren’t they? She’d damn well return if she wanted to.

It wasn’t black and hollow anymore, of course, the way it was last night. It was dappled, now, sparkling in the light of morning. The day had a chill to it, but the sun streaming down through the trees made it all seem warm, inviting. Made her grow quiet, humble, count every step. _Danger_ , the sign had said. _Precarious! Peril!_ it said. _Possibility_ , another voice said, worming its way forward. 

The path grew steeper, her steps crunched louder, the forest grew thicker. The air was very still, here. Vibrating. She sucked in air and found herself coughing, she must have been holding her breath without realizing it. She coughed and coughed, let her throat settle, and closed her eyes. Another deep breath in, inviting the vibrations inside, reaching the peak of the path before its long, winding finish down, and she continued her walk until she came upon the spring.

It was shallow, today. 

She’d seen it roaring before, years ago. Water springing from the earth and filling the glen with glee, or heavy rain settling inside and doubling its size. She stared at the spring a moment, unintimidating and small right now, gentle bubble. Across the clearing, across her memory, where she stood in the safety of the thick pines, the path. 

The last time she’d been here, a boy had been as well. 

She moved forward, trudged through the tall grass, the flowers. Approached the shallow bank the spring had created, brought herself down to her knees. The dampness of the soil sunk into her skirt, her tights. She readjusted herself to sit on her coat, and peered over the bank. Her reflection peered back, still thing in the water, and she reached up, watching herself, tucked her hair behind her ear.

“I’m … I’m marrying your father,” she said, down to the water, the spring.

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” she said hastily. “It’s just for convenience. A green card.” She reached a hand forward, let it hover over the water. “He’s forgiving my father’s debt, you see. We’re drowning in it. But we’ll be free, if I marry him.”

She blinked at the spring, feeling her cheeks heat, her hand shake. Carefully, she dipped her hand into the water, gasping at the cold, at the stark whiteness of her hand as it entered. The longer she held her hand in the water, her white started to disappear, despite the clearness of the spring.

She pulled her hand away, cold and shaking. “He doesn’t want to be without you. He must still feel you here, I think.”

She held her hand to her chest, cold drips running down, into her coat, onto her blouse. 

“Where did you go?” she asked, closing her eyes. Bae’s image came back readily, a sullen teenager wading into a tremendous spring, waist-high, turning back and looking at her with puffy eyes. 

She opened her eyes, took several breaths, realized she was shaking uncontrollably, her eyes wet. She counted her breaths, slow in, slow out, counted and counted until her heartbeat was back to normal, her shakes waning. 

The sunny day around her eased her up, walked her back from her memory, and allowed her to rise. Her legs were unsteady and numb from sitting too long. The wind pushed her hair around, made her aware of the chilled hand she’d dipped into the water, and she wiped it off as best she could on her coat. She stuffed both hands into her pockets, turned and headed back towards the path. 

Halfway to Storybrooke, her phone chimed with its returned signal.

She had several missed calls from Gold.

She tried dialing him back, but couldn’t get a successful connection until she was within view of the sign. When he answered, the heat of his breath spoke before he did.

“Where are you?” his voice demanded.

“Why?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

“You haven’t opened the library.”

His voice garbled over the last word, but she understood anyway.

“I’ve just gone on a walk,” she said, huffed breath an indication of her exertion. “I’ll be there shortly.”

“Shortly?” he scoffed. “Have you any idea of the time?”

Her brow furrowed, and she checked her phone. God, it was almost noon. Had she truly been gone so long?

As she approached the sign, the path back to Storybrooke, she was surprised to see Gold standing on the other side, through the trees. Phone to his ear, waiting by the rope she’d hopped over. He made a show of hanging up his phone at her approach, stuffing it into his pocket with a temper.

Her brows furrowed further, and she stopped just before the rope, hesitant to approach him. 

“How did you know I was here?” she asked.

“Dove saw you enter the forest. What were you doing in there?”

“... Dove? Your assistant?”

“What were you doing?” he asked again. “All fucking morning?”

She blinked at his curse. “Was Dove … watching me?”

Gold offered a mere shrug of one shoulder, a palm splayed out in explanation. “I like to protect my investments.”

“That’s .... that’s controlling, Silas.”

He shook his head. “Don’t call me that. Not now. What were you doing?”

She looked away from him, chewing her lip and trying to remain calm. Gold had trouble tolerating her silence, she could feel, taking it out with impatient taps of his cane. 

“Do you know how many people have disappeared in there?” he pushed. “Fourteen, in as many years. Everyone knows not to go in there. Bae knew not to go in there. What were you doing?”

“Remembering,” she said softly.

His impatient taps stumbled at her answer, and his stony glare eventually eased into furrowed brows, a frown that grew more pronounced the longer he stared at her. Eventually he looked down to his feet, and she watched as his knuckles grew white.

“Is he in there?” he asked, though she could barely hear him.

She stared at him for a long time. Approached the rope, hopped back over. “They never found a body, Silas.”

He nodded, didn’t bother correcting her this time, pursed his lips. A shaking hand ran over his face, through his hair. 

“I need to know you’re reliable,” he said. “I need to know you’re going to be at the courthouse tomorrow morning.”

His turn threw her. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You skipped work to take a walk. You didn’t answer your phone.”

“I didn’t mean to, it wasn’t my intention to,” she flubbed, words unable to keep up with her. “And I don’t get a signal in there!”

“Well that’s fucking irresponsible, isn’t it?” he fumed.

“You’re being controlling. You’re being frightening. Stop it.”

He bristled. “This whole thing could fall apart. You signed the contract, that means you gave me your word. Do you know what I can do to you if you don’t show?”

She felt that fury rise in her again, that hurt. “Do you know what the last thing Bae said to me was?”

He’d been shaking, but his body stilled now. “Of course. I’ve read the police report a thousand times.”

She stood firm in front of him, waited for his eye contact. “That he just wanted to be happy. With the person he was. With the person he lived with.”

“I know. I know that.”

She shook her head. “And this whole time, I thought he meant himself. But now I know he meant you.”

**Four**

She’d worn a dress, after all.

White and simple, to her knees, nothing extravagant. High necked but backless, a small amount of allure she wanted to give herself, just for herself, as she knew he wouldn’t care, much less notice.

She regretted her last words to him. They made her sick, made her stomach rot, made looking in the mirror impossible this morning. But she’d put on the dress she’d purchased days before, set out for the courthouse earlier than necessary, and waited for him. Her commitment fulfilled, her contract signed in name and in deed, her promise manifested. You were worried for nothing, she wanted to tell him.

But he had yet to show.

He was going on twenty minutes late, and perhaps this was his punishment to her. No one got away with barbed words to Gold without feeling his wrath, and this was likely his reminder to her that he could easily reciprocate any humiliation she’d given him.

Archie was there, the man chosen as the witness to their civil ceremony. They sat in silence across from each other in the room designated for the service, a government official the last member of their party, impatiently checking his watch and noting that he’d wait no longer than ten minutes for Gold to show.

“I’m sure it’s just the storm, Belle. I had trouble getting here myself,” Archie said.

“The storm?” Belle said.

She’d been so absorbed in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed the rolling thunder outside, the gentle crack of distant lightning, the wind and rain starting to patter against the building. The skies had been fine when she arrived, she thought idly.

“He’ll be here,” Archie said, checking his watch. “Any minute.”

The room was starting to grow dark and gray, the sunlight that once filled the room dampening and fading. Belle appreciated Archie’s comfort, even if he wasn’t aware of how hollow it was. The minutes ticked by, and Gold didn’t arrive for any of them.

“Better get the lights,” the official said, room growing so dark Belle could hardly see the two men across from her. A great smell of earth started to fill the room, the patter of rain growing heavier and louder against the building’s brick, the windows.

Archie obliged the man, rising and making his way over to the room’s switch. The lights came to life with a sudden boom across the room, or perhaps that was the strike of lightning that had just sounded, a terrible flash that had them all gasping as they were suddenly plunged back into darkness.

Belle shook where she sat, hearing Archie open the door, peer outside into the hallway and confirm that the rest of the building had fallen dark as well. The power had gone out, and this storm is only getting stronger, maybe we should all go home, what do you think?

“Mr. Gold has failed to show,” the official said blandly. “Reschedule with the clerk at the front, we’ll get this done another day.”

Archie offered Belle a sympathetic glance that she had to look away from, and both men left the room together, giving her a moment alone to sit and feel stupid. Outside, she could see a tree being thrown about by the wind, rain soaking the streets, and she wished she had a bouquet she could drop to the floor.

Instead she picked up her phone, called Gold’s number once, nodded as it went to voicemail, and rose to leave the room.

She didn’t bother rescheduling anything with any clerk, didn’t bother returning any of the documents that would just need to be recycled, refilled out again. She pulled her coat over her head, let it be her shield as she walked out into the rain, headed for his shop.

The wind pushed her around, soaked her legs, her white high heels. The bottom of her dress started to cling to her thighs, sopping and uncomfortable. Someone called to her from across the street, but it wasn’t his brogue, so she ignored them. 

She reached out a hand in front her, let it guide her to his door. The rain raised the goosebumps on her exposed arm, had her other hand fisting her coat tighter around her small frame. Finally she was there, Mr. Gold’s, Pawnbroker & Antiquities Dealer, sheltering herself in his doorway. His lights weren’t on, and three tries of his handle proved his door to be locked. 

She knocked on the door’s wood, the glass, wondering if she should allow herself the satisfaction of breaking it and unlocking the door herself if he refused to answer. Instead, she splayed her hand upon the glass, watching it fog up with her print, what little heat she had, rainwater leaving a small, pleasurable permanence to her mark. 

She pulled her hand away, stared at her print, the black of the shop behind it. She could knock again, but she felt emptiness beyond the door. She knew, in her wet legs, her shivering frame, her shaking fist, that no one was in there.

His salmon Victorian was next, the walk taking her so long she stumbled no less than three times. An angry, rain soaked rat arriving at his stoop was the least he deserved, she reasoned. But no one answered at his stoop, no one answered her knocks, her doorbell rings, her fisted bangs.

She rounded his home, walked up the garden path like she had merely a week ago. Expected maybe to find his black coat, his black umbrella, sitting there resentfully, stewing, waiting for her. But no one was there, no umbrella, no stewing. She tried his back door, surprised to find it unlocked. 

She pushed the door open. 

“Silas,” she called. 

Stepping inside, she found herself in a green room, likely the one he’d promised to her when he spoke of moving in. There were plants everywhere, adorning the floor, the shelves, tables, and she sighed for how pretty it was. 

A small, round, white wrought iron table sat in the middle, a set of folders on top of it. She recognized the first to be the one she’d given him with her information. She thumbed through the second to find copies of the documents meant to be filed at the courthouse that morning. 

A shift of the folders tumbled something off the table, small _clink_ to the ground. 

His keys.

“Silas?” she called again.

She was creating a small puddle where she stood, sad dripping girl. A set of french doors were in front of her, open and revealing a hallway, large mirror on the wall facing her. She saw herself, wet ragdoll of a reflection, watched herself shake her head. 

“He’s not here,” her reflection said.

She turned around, back towards the door she’d entered. An umbrella stand sat by the door, with that black umbrella he’d used to offer her cover so long ago. She grabbed it, popped it open, and stepped back out into the garden, into the storm.

The air was thick, wet, gray, and she plopped herself on his stone bench, nerves overtaking her. His roses, his peonies sagged with rain, too heavy from the sky, flooding his yard and creating large puddles here and there. The wind whipped around her, pushing her umbrella but she held it tight. 

The spring would be filling up, right now, she thought.

The spring.

Her gasp nearly choked her!

Belle rose, after leveling her heart rate with several gulps of breath, and fixed the umbrella firmer in her grasp. She left her coat behind on the bench, and headed for the woods.

It took longer than the walk from his shop to his home, but she didn’t stumble, her steps sure and determined. She yanked at the rope, at the sign, when she got to it, flimsy precaution falling away easily with her violence.

The transition from cobblestones to dirt path had the points of her heels sinking, and she kicked the damn things off, letting herself walk through the needles, the muck, the mud instead. Her umbrella kept catching on low hanging pines, so she abandoned it to the forest floor. The trees offered better protection from the downpour, anyway. 

Lightning cracked, a flash somewhere far away, and she pushed on. 

The walk took forever. The steep climb up, the peak in the path, the long dip down. She trudged on, despite the pain of her feet, the chill in her arms. She could hear the spring gurgling before she approached. Full and roaring, heavy rainfall flooding the spot where she sat yesterday.

Her feet squished as she exited the pines, made her way through the clearing towards the spring, the dark figure she saw lying there. 

Black suit, polished shoes, soles upturned. White hands motionless, arms tucked by his sides, palms facing the sky. Body on the bank, head in the water. 

Mr. Gold, facedown in the spring, hair haloing around him.

Lighting sounded again, direct and up above, drowning out whatever scream Belle sang for the drowned man.


	2. The Second Wedding

_ **The Second Wedding** _ ****

**One**

Pulling a body from water was bleak, black work.

Rolling him onto the bank, watching rain splatter his open mouth, his rolled eyes, it was hopeless. Belle swallowed tremors running down hands that were just trying to help, trying to run and hide and disappear, trying to hold him and mourn him and disappear. The whole thing, just impossible.

She had a very, very stupid fantasy that the next time her lips pressed to his, it would be in some form of forgiveness, or fury, or, God help her, ardor, but instead it was to blow breath, start compressions.

Five breaths in, is his chest rising? Five presses down, is the water coming out? Turn his head to the side, get the water out, now up again, lift the neck, open his airway. One hand to his forehead, the other to his chin, her lips to his, breathe, breathe, Oh God, Oh God, am I doing this right?

She worked and worked, breathing and pressing, but little was happening. She put breath in, but no water came out. She fumbled for her phone, fumbled with the temptation to hug her knees and bury down her forehead. She didn’t get a signal out here, she’d need to run back to the ruined sign to call for help, but she couldn’t just leave him alone! He was small and withered and dismal beside her, she couldn’t just abandon him! How miserable he’d feel, how rejected.

But the work to pull him from the spring had been so much, and she’d only managed a few feet. How would she possibly carry him over the path, out of the forest, to help?

She closed her eyes and decided. Made her way back to the sign, clumsy running, clumsy tripping, God it took forever, until she finally had a signal.

The dispatcher was calm while she was wild. She was shouting, maybe, or hissing, who knew. “We’re on our way, ma’am,” they assured, and she nodded, turned around, back into the forest, phone at her ear while she tried to explain, provide all the necessary information on Mr. Gold’s current state.

“His lips are blue, so are his fingernails,” she was saying, babbling. “I’m not sure how long he, I don’t know when he got here, he. But I felt him. I didn’t feel him at the shop and I didn’t feel him at his home, but I felt him here, if you could just get here,” she said, said and said.

But oh, the line had cut out, she realized, halfway back down the path, because of course it had, no signal, of course. She still held the phone to her ear, still babbled, as she made her way back. Up the steep part, up to the peak, where the trees were thickest. 

“He’s so heavy,” she said. “The water, the rain … not by myself, I can’t, if you could please, I need you here, please hurry.”

Her free hand reached up, grabbing the pine next to her, just as she started the long descent down the path to the spring, the clearing. She let her weight fall against the bark, her shoulder, her head. Let her phone fall to her side, the bouquet she never got to drop.

She trudged down, grabbing tree after tree for leverage. Through the rain and the grey she peered forward, waiting for sight of the spring. The whole thing had been nearly flooded; if it kept up like this it’d reach her on its own, small creep of rain and spring water towards her.

She remembered the boy again, from years prior. How he turned back to face her when she called his name, “Bae!” His eyes, so swollen, his lips, so red from being bitten, chewed, while he waded further into the water. “I just want to be happy,” he’d said.

She blinked, stopped. There it was, the spring, and she rested against her current tree.

She’d gone in after Bae that night, after his head went underwater. Unlike his father, she never found a body to pull out, to drag to shore. And how could that be? A spring only as deep as his waist, how had she lost him? And when the spring dried up the following season, there was still no body, no Bae, and how, how could that be?

“I just want to be happy,” he’d said. Sometime, before that, he’d said other things, things she didn’t understand. “Do you hear them?” he’d asked. 

She blinked again, staring at the spring, ahead, through the last of the trees. A shadow, ahead, catching her eye.

Belle approached slowly, eyes scanning the clearing, looking for the spot where she thought Gold’s form lay by the spring, in the grass, the flowers. 

But he was gone, matted imprint where he once lay. 

In his place was a figure, rising, standing, looking back at her. Blue lips and hair streaming down his forehead with the rain, waterlogged suit hanging from his frame. Staring at his hands, then back up at her.

“Silas?” she said.

“Belle,” he tried to say, but instead he vomited water and reached for his mouth.

“Silas! Silas!” she said, as he coughed and coughed, water and more water, water everywhere. 

  
  


**Two**

“Here, careful. Hold onto me.”

The spring had been impossible, this was moreso. Heavy drenched man with an arm slung over her shoulders, awkward footing like he was managing on newborn legs. Her feet were little better, shoeless and sinking into the mud with each step. But they were managing, pathetic pair, with the aid of the pines around them.

Gold would often shoot out a hand for the next tree and miss it entirely, almost stumbling them both forward.

“Careful!” she cried.

“You’re beautiful, have I told you?” he said.

Her brows furrowed, her grip on him clammy, trying to lift him up again from his recent stumble.

“You haven’t,” she grunted.

His jacket leaked water where it pressed to her skin, and the arm not around her shoulders started to paw at his buttons, his lapels.

“Help me,” he said.

“I am helping you,” she said, another grunt under his weight.

“With this,” he smiled, unperturbed by her sharp response. He kept pawing at his jacket, and she finally noticed, helped prop him against a tree. She tugged the thing open for him, helped him peel it back and off his shoulders, sopping garment weighing him down, helped him get it off, throw it down to the forest floor.

“That’s better,” he said. “It was so heavy.”

He was so heavy, but she didn’t say anything. He was against the tree now, anyway, giving her a small break from their walk. And the way he was looking at her, so soft and like he hadn't just been facedown in a spring, like he hadn’t just skipped their wedding. She couldn’t help a small smile back. They were here, middle of the woods, middle of the storm, as a  _ we _ , when they very well couldn’t be. 

“You are so, so beautiful, have I told you?”

She furrowed her brows again. “How much water did you inhale?”

He was talking with her, conversing, but she saw how his eyes swam in his head, how his movements lacked intention. All that oxygen deprived from his brain, and for how long?

She wanted to ask, wanted to obtain whatever outlandish answer his waterlogged state would give her, before he was recovered and healed and back to his usual, cold, unaffectionate self. But he was grabbing her shoulders, hoisting himself up again, wrapping himself around her, and she had to jolt into action to catch him.

“Careful!” she cried again.

“I’ve always inhaled water,” he said, nonsense answer.

“You’re ridiculous,” she muttered, somewhere against his shoulder.

She rearranged him best she could, arm slung over her shoulders again, weight proportioned just right to get them walking again. “Use the trees,” she instructed, helping him along. They were nearly to the peak. Her mind already worried ahead, worried about the way back down to Storybrooke, if the steepness of the path would cause them both to tumble forward, and where was help? They should be here by now, they should -

“You’re beautiful, so beautiful, have I told you?” he said again, and she was about to complain when he moved, shifting behind her. His hands rounded her waist, came up and caressed her exposed back, ran along her spine before entering through the wide, backless part of her dress. 

“Silas, what are you?” she said, reaching for a tree.

His hands made their way towards her breasts, up through the back of her fabric, and she gasped as his cold hands ran her skin. He pulled her back tight into his chest, began to knead her flesh with vigor.

“So beautiful,” he said, plucking her nipples. His nose pushed into her neck, her hair.

“S-Silas!” she said.

He pushed his hands up higher underneath her fabric, grasping hold of the front straps of her dress and tugging them down. He turned her around in his arms, drunk smile on his face at her exposed breasts, pebbled chest in front of him. His hands rounded her shoulders before he saw how badly she was shaking, how her lips had parted in protest.

His eyes swam, he blinked. ‘“I’m frightening you,” he said.

“Yes. Very much.”

His head dropped, swinging low, shaking and trying. “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling her dress back up as best he could, helping her reclaim her modesty. ‘I’m sorry, I,”

“Another time,” she said. “You can reveal your suppressed, passionate feelings for me another time. When you’ve not just died and come back again. We need to get you to the hospital. They’re coming. Please.”

He nodded. “They’re … coming?”

“Ambulance,” she said.

He nodded again, though his eyes kept swimming.

She snaked his arm over her shoulders again, led him back down the path again. This was taking forever, and she wondered if it was just all a dream. Maybe they were really still down by the spring, her tearful frame shaking in sobs by his still body where it lay on the bank, and this was all just a dream.

The painful steps of their walk reminded her otherwise, naked feet trying to get them back down, down to home, down to help, and she pressed on.

Every few steps, his nose would swing to her hair again.

“You told me you weren’t an affectionate man, Gold,” she said, the third time he did it. “I think you’re a big liar.”

He laughed at that, like she’d told the funniest joke he’d ever heard. The laugh was loud and unnerving, and she frowned.

“Come on,” she said, pushing them both forward.

“Ah,” he said, several steps later. “They’re here.”

She looked up, red lights, white lights, blue, people running toward them. The people separated them, leading them this way and that, and when Belle looked at Gold, he looked right back at her, strange smile on his face.

He kept that strange smile on, kept looking at her, the whole time they were led down to the lights, the ambulance, the ride to the hospital. It was a smile she’d never seen before. Or maybe, somehow, someday, a long time ago, an age ago, she had.

  
  


**Three**

Aside from battered feet, she was fine.

She waved off further care. Other than the emotional toll she’d endured, her body had managed, and she didn’t need any bigger of a bill arriving at her doorstep. This whole ordeal had been born of debt; it was already threatening to end with more.

They led her to Gold, after. Let her take a seat beside his bed, assured her they’d fill her in on his details once he was awake enough to sign papers, allow her knowledge of his care as his fiance once he confirmed the fact. He mustn’t have been too damaged, they didn’t seem overly worried, and his sleeping frame was near peaceful as she looked at him.

They were fine now, and that security allowed her anger and hurt to return properly. Oh, the things she wanted to say to him! But he was still asleep, still gone, and right now, all she could think about was how he looked so, so small. 

It was strange seeing him without his suit, and she idly remembered that his jacket was abandoned somewhere on the forest floor. His hair was a mess and she was tempted to smooth it down, but wasn’t sure what she’d do if he awoke to her hands on his face, his head. His lips were no longer blue, his fingernails returned to pink. His arms, exposed up to his elbows, were their own magnificent sight. Sinewy still things, protruding from the blue gown they’d put him in. She was tempted to lift his right sleeve, get a glimpse of his lizard, but didn’t know what she’d do if he caught her like that either.

Instead she nestled down into her chair, studied his face, pulled her knees to her chest. She probably looked just as messy as him, in desperate need of a shower, still wearing her wretched dress. But for now she’d watch his face, his nose, his mouth, his closed eyes, and pull the hospital blanket they’d given her over her shoulders. Count his breaths, relish in the success that he was breathing at all, and wait.

They both roused, hours later, days later, who knows.

She woke to his body unmoved, but his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Her own body ached terribly, stupid hospital chair no excuse for a real bed. Her muscles protested with pins and needles as she stretched her legs, her arms, her back.

“You’re awake,” she said, drowsy husk of a voice.

“I’m awake,” he said, blinking slowly, voice no clearer.

“How do you feel?”

“I’m … hungry. Voraciously hungry.” He turned his head to face her, and she fisted her blanket at his eye contact. “You stayed with me.”

She nodded.

“You didn’t have to do that. Thank you.”

She nodded again, watching him.

“I’m glad you did,” he said. “It’s easier, with you here.”

She said nothing, the pins and needles continuing through her body, his words warming in her ears.

His hands came up and cupped his face, running over his eyes, his mouth. He sighed heavy into his palms. “How long have I been here?”

“I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.”

He chuckled, then rasped, regretting the sound. He coughed, groaned, tried to sit up, face wincing with effort.

“Don’t,” she said, rising, hovering, hands ready to ease his shoulders back down to the bed, but she hesitated, unsure if she wanted to touch him.

He watched the motion, blinked at her rising, the way the blanket fell from her. He let himself lay back down.

“You’re a mess,” he smiled.

“You’re no better,” she said, not smiling back.

“Come here.”

She was still standing awkwardly from where she’d risen, was about to retrieve her blanket, wrap herself up in it. She was unsure just what he meant,  _ come here _ , when she was already so close.

“Please,” he said.

“On … here?” she asked, and he nodded, indicating a seat on the bed, next to where he lay. She obliged him, though she was hesitant. Her legs still ached from her nap, and she felt awkward, unsure where to place her hands other than her own lap. His hand rested by her knee, though he didn’t touch her.

“We’re quite a pair, I imagine,” he said, and for a moment she forgot he was talking about their appearances, mussed hair and sallow skin. Her proximity to him made her brain jumbled, hyper aware of their closeness and little else. She shook her head, tried to clear the fog, come back to herself and look at him. The way he was looking at her, too similar to how he looked at her in the woods, nothing of how he looked at her in their meetings, their solidification of their deal, and she felt her hurt rise up from her stomach, everything she wanted to ask him.

She didn’t protest as he sat up this time, easing his way slowly upright, scooting closer to her. Once level with her, he tried to soothe her into his nearness with steady eye contact. His hands came up, very slow, and she kept herself still as he cupped her face.

“You’re so beautiful, have I told you?” he said.

She blinked. This again. 

“You mentioned it, once or twice. In the woods.” She tried to keep her face neutral, but the flash of memory rushed her, when he’d kneaded and held her, and she closed her eyes. His fingers played at her temples, her cheeks, and she swallowed, unable to hold back her questions anymore.

“Why didn’t you come to the courthouse, yesterday?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer, kept playing at her jaw, her hairline. 

“What were you doing at the spring?” she pressed.

“Remembering,” he said.

Her brows furrowed, his echo of her own non-reply from so long ago. “You and I go about ‘remembering’ very differently.”

He chuckled, and this time it caused no rasp, no cough. He reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, and her eyes opened. For a moment she was looking into the spring again, watching her own reflection tuck her hair behind her ear as she gazed into the still water from the bank. 

She pulled away suddenly, standing, cupping a hand over her ear where he’d touched her.

She sat back down in her chair. “It may be easier for you with me here, but it isn’t easier for me,” she said.

His hands, still hovering in midair, finally dropped back down to the bed, and he nodded. He blinked, slow, eyes heavy again, trying to close for more sleep.

She thought about pressing him again, asking her questions again, but he was easing himself back down, closing his eyes, disappearing again. She bit her lip, waited for his heavy breath.

She picked up the blanket from where it had fallen on the floor, thought about wrapping herself up again. But her bed, her shower, somewhere far away, started to call to her, promising their comforts.

“I’m going home,” she said, quietly, to his sleeping form, his heavy breath. “When you’re … really awake, when you’re yourself again, we can talk. We need to talk. But, you’re safe now. And I have to go.”

  
  


**Four**

She called Dove. 

She felt terrible for leaving the hospital without Gold, and then she felt terrible for feeling terrible. He was the one who hadn’t shown at their wedding, after all, he was the one who’d gone traipsing in the woods after being so thoroughly pissed when she’d done the same. But who else was there to care for him, assure he was returned home once he was patched up?

So she called Dove.

She wished she could have seen the man’s face while she spoke: “Gold entered the woods,” she said, her ominous explanation for why he was now at the hospital. She hoped Dove tasted the irony the same way she did, she reporting on Gold the same way he had reported on her so long ago. Dove gave little indication he sensed any similarities, just accepted her information, carried on with whatever he carried on with, assured her Gold would be taken care of. She hung up the phone feeling small, but at least Gold would have someone tending to him.

A shower was in order, and standing nude in front of her mirror she saw a wild forest fae. Her hair everywhere, dried dirt and rain streaks on her skin. Sunken eyes and hard mouth frowning. “Oh God,” she muttered, running dirty hands over dirty ribs. The streaks that ran her breasts, those were the most frightening, thrilling. Where Gold had touched her, reached to knead her under her dress.

What had overcome him? Did it really take near-death to bring out warmth in him, passion? Why couldn’t he have offered such touch in the usual way, the mundane way? Movie, dinner, long car drive home, fumble on the couch that led to a tumble in bed? Was he really so beyond good, tried and true traditions?

She hopped into the shower. Held her face as long as she could under the heat of the spray, ran her hands over her body to clean, cleanse the forest away, tried not to picture his hands instead. When she closed her eyes, his face was there, and she tried to rub him away with her palms.

Clean and renewed, she brushed her hair, pulled on her freshest pajamas, and hid inside her bed for the rest of the afternoon, the rest of the night. Proper sleep in a proper bed, no more scrunching into a hospital chair.

She woke to a cool morning outside. Sunlight streaming in, making her doubt her experience. Had there been a ferocious storm just yesterday? Had there been a man needing to be pulled out of a spring? Her sore muscles reminded her that it had indeed happened, so she brushed her hair again, dressed properly, prepared a small breakfast. Whatever it took to feel human again. 

She wasn’t scheduled to work today. This had been move-in day, when Gold had promised all her things would be boxed and carted by a crew and sent over to his home. She thought it strange to not take care of some of the packing herself, so her apartment was in a mini, mid-disarray of her own boxes and bags that he would have sighed at, deeming it all unnecessary, extra work.

When a knock arrived at her door, she wondered if it was the crew after all, still scheduled to move her over.

But it was Mr. Gold.

“Silas,” she said, alarmed, and he gave a crooked smile at her use of his name.

Her eyes glanced over him, his fresh hair, fresh clothes. He looked completely reset. Sharp three piece suit, both hands resting on his cane, small smile on his face. She swallowed.

“I’ve surprised you,” he said.

“I just … I didn’t expect you so soon. I didn’t know how long they wanted to keep you, at the hospital.”

“Dove helped retrieve me out of their … indelicate hands. Thank you for calling him, by the way.”

“Um. You’re welcome,” she said.

“May I come in?”

“Oh. Yes,” she fumbled, allowing him entry.

He made his way to the center of her small living space, commenting on an artwork or two, more than he’d done the last time he’d been here. When his nose was buried in a contract, when he was ignoring the meal she’d prepared. She noted the difference, thanked him, and asked if he wanted any coffee, tea.

“Tea, please,” he said.

She led him to her small kitchen table, bid him sit while she started brewing. She could feel his eyes on her back while she moved, could see him rubbing his cane with his thumbs when she chanced a glance at him. 

“I owe you an apology, Belle.”

She turned, resting her back against her counter. “You do,” she said softly.

“I shouldn’t have … groped you like that. In the woods, at the hospital.”

Her brows furrowed, her cheeks reddened. She turned around to keep her reaction to herself, busied her hands by adjusting the heat on her kettle. 

“I appreciate that. But I thought you were going to apologize about the courthouse,” she said.

“The courthouse?”

She looked at him, the daze on his face. “You never showed.”

When he didn’t immediately speak, she turned back to her cupboards, pulled some cups for them, some tea bags. “You made such a big stink about … about what you would do to me if I didn’t show up for our wedding. And then it was you who didn’t show.”

“Our wedding,” he said, blinking. “We’re not yet married?”

“No,” she said, brows furrowing further. She stared at him, the confusion he was struggling with, the way it lined his face as he thought.

“Well,” he said. “Then, yes. I owe you an apology for that too. That was very rude of me.”

She suddenly felt stupid, selfish. For the anger she’d been harboring, the long hurt. Her humiliation had been so strong when he hadn’t shown, that it never occurred to her that he hadn’t meant to not show. That he was too busy lying facedown in a spring to make it to the courthouse. She’d been the very one to pull him out of that spring, and still she’d been blinded by her hurt.

“Silas,” she said, and he looked up at her. “What happened to you?”

The kettle started whistling, sharp pierce beside her. 

She winced, retrieved the kettle, calmed its whistle. Shaking, she poured the first cup, embarrassed that such a small thing had unnerved her. 

A hand reached around her, and she nearly jumped. Gold had risen, come closer to help. He helped her pour the second cup, helped her set the kettle down. He joined her at her side, and they both watched the tea bloom, darken the water.

“Can you forgive me?” he asked.

“Is it necessary? My forgiveness? If you didn’t even … if you didn’t,”

“I think so,” he said. “I think it’s still necessary.”

She stared at her drink, unable to answer.

She licked her lips, swallowed. “If we’re going to move forward, if we’re going to … forgive, or … complete our deal, I need to know. Why did you go to the spring?” she asked. “When did you go?”

He rested both hands on the counter, closed his eyes for a minute. “You had mentioned Bae. So I went to the spring.”

Her eyes widened. He said it so simply, his reference to her callous remark. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

He shook his head. “You reminded me of a truth I’d been pushing away. I needed to hear it.”

“When did you go?” she asked again. “The night before, the morning?”

“It feels like the same, doesn’t it?” he said, giving her that crooked smile. “The night, the morning.”

“No,” she said. “They’re different. Very different.”

He picked up his cup, tea bag and all, and she was about to protest that it wasn’t ready yet. He didn’t yet drink, just played with the bag’s string, then ran a hand over his face. 

“Does it matter?” he asked. “The night, the morning?”

“Yes,” she pushed. “I don’t understand what happened to you. How long you’d been out there. How you … how you’re here, now, after-”

“Belle, the truth of the matter is I don’t remember. I don’t remember that night, that morning,” he said, cup dwarfing in his large hands. He brought it up, stared at the liquid inside.

“I just know that I woke up, and I saw you,” he finished.

Her mouth parted, though she didn’t know what to say.

“Can you forgive me?” he asked again.

She shook her head. “It’s unnecessary.”

“For the groping and kissing, at least.”

She scoffed. “You didn’t kiss me.”

He looked up, disbelieving. “No. I at least remember that.”

She shook her head. “No, you’re … you’re mistaken. We’ve never kissed.”

He furrowed his brows. Brought a hand up, fingers that reached out like he wanted to touch her lips, then brought his hand down. “No. My mouth on yours. I remember that.”

“You’re probably thinking of the … mouth to mouth resuscitation.”

He nodded, though his face didn’t look convinced. “We’ve never kissed,” he mused. “We’re set to marry, and we’ve never kissed.”

“You … didn’t want to,” she said, eyes furrowed. “Well,” she allowed, “once. We did kiss, once. The peck you gave me. In your shop.”

She turned away, needing a moment if they were going to talk about this. She busied herself with the removal of her tea bag, held her hand out to remove his. He obliged, waving her off when she offered sugar, milk. He took a short sip, hummed, then indulged in a long, slow sip. 

“I owe you my thanks as well, Belle. For … for being that person I saw, when I woke up. For waking up at all.”

She nodded, unsure what to say, hiding herself in her own long sip of tea.

“Do you want to move forward? With our marriage?” he asked.

She wrapped her hands around her warm cup, took her own turn staring down at the dark color swirling. 

“We have to, don’t we? In your contract you listed a deadline. It’s right around the corner.”

He nodded. “And your father’s debt. Yes.”

“Well. You already took care of that, actually. You accidentally shifted the scales in my favor. I could refuse you now, run away from you debt-free. You could let me go.”

“I could,” he said. “As a thank you, for saving me. But I’d like it if you’d marry me.”

She looked up at him, a frown set on her face. She could feel her shoulders tensing, and took a moment to put her cup down in case it shook while she spoke.

“You’d ‘like it?’” she said. “Before, when we started this whole thing, I’d say you … needed it. But in no way did you ‘like it.’ So be truthful, now. Use your words carefully.” 

He turned, put his own teacup down, set his own frown on his face. Allowed himself a step closer to her, a step in. Slowly, carefully, so as to ease her into him, not make her jump or scare.

He leaned down, watching her as he moved. She blinked before glancing down at his mouth, just before it joined hers. 

He pressed his lips to her, let his hand wrap around the back of her neck, pull her in closer. Opened his mouth, let the pressure of his lips open hers, run his tongue along her teeth, her tongue. She returned his touch, his plucks, pretty taste of tea on both their tongues. Slow, wet, keen for response, and the man who’d pecked her in his shop so long ago dissolved in her mouth. 

He pulled back, but not far enough to keep his breath from huffing into her mouth as he exhaled, his wet lips occasionally brushing hers. A long time ago his cologne had caught her, smelling of a sharp spice, a thick floral.

But right now he smelled of earth, the spring, the dark.

“Marry me, Belle. Please.”

  
  


**Five**

She said yes. 

For the second time.

“Just. Promise you’ll show up this time,” she said.

And he laughed, promised. For the second time.

They discussed a little more after that, a new court date, a new move-in date. Even a date-date. He invited her to dinner the following evening, and she couldn’t refuse him after agreeing to be his wife again.

“We could use more time, before marrying, to talk,” he said. “That’s what you said at the hospital. That we needed to talk.”

She reddened. “I thought you were asleep. When I said that.”

He shrugged. “I was, and I wasn’t,” he said, and she had no idea what to make of it.

“Organically,” he continued. “You said you wanted us to speak organically. So that’s what we’ll do.”

He’d brightened when he’d said it, like he’d just remembered it. It was sweet, it made her belly warm, made her future feel brighter, lighter. But where there was light, there was darkness, and Belle couldn’t shake the worm in her gut that spoke up every time she looked at him.  _ Look closer _ , the worm said,  _ pay attention! _

She played their morning exchange in her brain, over and over, small movie keeping her awake. The day had gone and passed, sun down and moon come up, and she lay in her bed, remembering.

The kiss he’d given her, oh. That played in her mind as well, despite everything. Despite the hurt she’d felt so sharply before, despite the strangeness she felt now, the trauma of recovering a man from a spring. All of those things should weigh her, slow her, not have her give in to his touch so readily. Am I truly so easily won over? she thought.

Her hands idled across her belly, her breasts, remembering. She stared at her ceiling, odd shadows cast by the moon, the streetlamps, and let her fingers trace a path down to her groin, over her panties. She liked the way he made her feel, wanted to feel this way for so long. But now that she had it, she wasn’t sure how to hold it, handle it. She’d rather it hold and handle her, she thought, and smiled as her fingers continued their traces, as her eyes finally grew heavy.

His face pulled up in her sleep. As her eyes blinked closed, his eyes blinked open, the hard Mr. Gold she’d met in the garden, so long ago. Rain and black umbrella, weird picture of him standing before her, or sitting, or floating, or something. The scene kept shifting. But his face, hard and staring, remained constant. 

The rain and black umbrella framing him fell away, and his body turned, headed out of his garden and down toward the path. His movements were harsh, stilted, leaning too heavily on his cane as he trudged forward, stomping, muttering maybe, she couldn’t tell. And then the path fell away, and it was nothing but the spring, and his face floating down towards it. 

She watched him float, watched his arms open wide at his sides, like a hug, like an eager embrace. She watched as he reached for the ground, the spring, tilted forward, entered. And when all of him submerged into the water, his fine suit, his polished shoes, his hard face, a new him emerged right back, those wide arms reaching up for the sky, a reversal of his embrace of the spring. Exiting the water, floating up again, returning to the safe, dry land. His face no longer hard, but softened, smooth, the man who had kissed her.

She stared at the man, watched as he reached a hand forward to beckon her. She reached her hand up in return, ready to grasp his, but behind him something white, something else was reaching. 

Bae, his pale figure as she’d last seen it all those years ago. Waist deep in the water, his own hand up, but not for her. For someone else beside him, for someone else raising their own hand, clasping Bae’s.

“Don’t!” she wanted to cry, or maybe that’s what Mr. Gold cried, the one in front of her, the one newly emerged from the water. Wrapping his arms around her, keeping her from entering the spring, from rushing towards Bae.

But she didn’t see Bae anymore, she saw faces. The spring was lumpy with them, heads here and there, eyes turning towards her, blinking. Faces, so many faces.

A very low scratch sounded, a harsh dig against dry wood, and she blinked back at Mr. Gold, who was saying something, but she couldn’t hear. The scratch was too loud, sounding again and again, scratch, scratch scratch!

She woke with a dry gasp, coughing and reaching for her bedside water. The glass had lost its chill in the night, now a tepid room temperature that had her frowning, but she gulped it down. 

That terrible low scratch was in front of her, nearby tree with overgrown branches, scratching its tips against her bedroom window. 

She blinked at it, relieved it was merely a tree in the wind, and huddled back into her bed, pulled her covers up tight. Low wind, low scratch, terrible dream, and she huddled further into her bed, pulled her covers up over her head, and hid in her darkness. Shut her eyes tight, tried to dispel all the things frightening and worrying her, and went back to sleep.

  
  


**Six**

His home was perfect.

There was an unease that had been following her, since her terrible dream, since his recovery from their wild ordeal. But his invitation to his home, their date, helped to quell all that. He welcomed her in through the front door, properly this time, and let her ooh and ahh and wander, touch walls, touch trinkets, paintings, in and out of rooms without warning or complaint. He trailed behind, amused by her amusement.

“This will be your room,” he said to a pretty blue bedroom with dark wainscoting and other intricate woodwork on the ceiling. The room was impressive, beautiful, felt larger than her entire apartment. She touched the doorframe, leaned against it, took a moment to breathe.

“This place is,” she said, and was uncertain how to phrase how deeply moved she felt without embarrassing herself, without expressing more than she should. But when she looked back at him, the way he smiled, the way he placed his hands in his pockets, he seemed to already hear everything she couldn’t quite say.

“You haven’t even seen the library yet,” he said. “But, another time. Let’s have dinner, before it gets cold.”

His home was perfect, and he was perfect. He wasn’t in his usual three-piece suit this time, but more relaxed with his shirt unbuttoned at the neck, his sleeves rolled up and revealing his forearms. She’d never seen his forearms before.

He led her past his formal dining room, and into a small eating nook in his kitchen. Round bay windows, bench seating edged around a table that was smaller and more intimate than a large dining affair. They would be tucked away, here. Plates placed closer together, wine glasses easy to mix up in their proximity. She blushed, and sat.

“Do I have your, erm, personal cook to thank for all this?” she asked.

“No, actually. I wanted to … for what I want to accomplish this evening, it seemed more appropriate that my hands be the ones to prepare the meal.”

“You made this?”

“I did, actually,” he brightened. “It’s not very,” and he gestured towards their food, “it’s not very pretty, but I promise it doesn’t taste terrible.”

She smiled, brows slightly furrowed as she tried to understand his bashfulness, his ferventness. She assured him the meal was lovely, assured him it was delicious when she took a bite. He thanked her, poured their wine, and they enjoyed their meal together in companionable silence.

“This is … this is wonderful, Silas,” she said, watching him.

“Thank you. My pleasure.”

“You don’t seem so annoyed, now. When I use your name.”

He looked at her, took a moment to smile over a bite of his fork, another moment to smile over the rim of his near empty wine glass. “I like it when you say my name, Belle.”

“You didn’t, before.”

He set his glass down. “Do you like it when I say your name?”

She cupped her wine glass with two hands, ran a thumb close to the rim while looking at him. “Yes,” she said.

He smiled, that strange one she’d seen so long ago, in the forest, in the ambulance. The one that looked both old and new. It made her lips part, her brows furrow.

“I’m aware that you find me strange,” he said. “I can feel when I unnerve you.”

She blinked, felt her hands tighten over her glass.

“But I can also feel when you warm to me. Like when I say your name,” he said. “Belle.”

She felt the warmth he spoke of, conjuring up behind her cheeks, her belly, just as he said it. The very proof of his words, as he said her name, as he looked at her.

“My touch, sometimes,” he said, reaching forward, touching her wrist, “warms you. Other times, you recoil. I’d like to remedy that.”

She looked down at his hand, where he touched her wrist. “Why?”

“Because I like you. I like … warming you.”

His hand retreated, and she stared at her wrist, still feeling him there. “If you like me … answer something honestly for me.”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“What’s your favorite movie?”

He chuckled, recognizing her frustration over his folder, so long ago. “I honestly don’t have one.”

“Your favorite book, then.”

“ _ The Left Hand of Darkness _ ,” he said, no pause, no looking down.

“Truly?” she asked. “Sci-fi?”

He nodded. “And you? You accused me of fabrication, before. I didn’t believe your folder when it said  _ Wuthering Heights.  _ That’s a very librarian answer.”

She reddened, laughed at being caught. “Um. Yes. My favorite is actually  _ Howl’s Moving Castle _ ,” she said, borrowing his lack of pause, his assured stare.

He smiled, but his brows narrowed at her laugh. “I haven’t read that one. I haven’t even heard of it. You laugh like it’s embarrassing.”

She felt herself redden further, laughed more. “I mean. It isn’t, not really. But, with you, I don’t know what to be embarrassed over or not.”

“Don’t be,” he shrugged, tucking into his meal again. “It’s a part of you. I’ll read it.”

She reddened further, words lost in whatever this light feeling was as she looked down at her meal again. They finished in silence, warm buzz around them, occasional glances and smiles and sips of wine. Soon enough he rose, offered to clear her plate. She waved him off in favor of them cleaning together.

“This is a good start, isn’t it?” he said as they gathered their dishes. “Good meal together, good talking. The … organics, of it all.”

She laughed again, joined him at his side while they cleaned the table, the kitchen together.

“It is. But. Only because I feel like you’re someone else, right now,” she said, watching him, wondering if he’d take offense at her words.

Instead he shrugged, not quite looking back at her. “Maybe I am.”

She bit her lip, and wondered.

After they finished cleaning, he led her to the green room. She didn’t bother bringing up how frightened she’d stood in this room so long ago, how her reflection in his hallway mirror had spoken to her. Instead she oohed and aahed again, over his plants, over the moon finding its way in through the large windows. 

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, quiet, to himself, letting a hand lightly trail her shoulder while she ran her own hand over rosemary rising and spilling from a pot it’d grown too big for. 

She stilled at his touch, but didn’t move away from him.

“You always say that,” she said, turning to face him. “You’re beautiful too, you know. And practically naked.”

“Naked?

She looked down, indicating his exposed forearms, hovered her hand above. “I’ve never seen you so dressed down.”

He nodded, and watched her motions, waiting for her hand to land. “Do you like it?”

“I do,” she said.

When she didn’t touch him, he brought his hand up, touched her shoulder again, her neck. “I was reading through our contract,” he said, “and I’d like to make some changes.”

“Oh?”

“I have a proposal,” he said. “That we do what we can to make our upcoming ceremony more … real. A real wedding.”

“Real?” she repeated. “Like … cake? Music? Dress, veil?”

He nodded. 

“I … I don’t really want a big wedding.”

“It doesn’t have to be big. I don’t want it big, either. But … real. Something we can invite your friends, your father to. Let them see how happy we are.”

She blinked. “Are we … happy?”

“I’d like to present that we are,” he said. “To them.”

“Okay.”

The hand that trailed her shoulder moved down, ran along her arm, down until his hand was nearly leading into hers.

“May I?” he asked.

Her fingers twitched, and took the privilege of interlacing them through his in lieu of a spoken answer. She sighed, thinking of the time in his shop when she’d done this very same thing, and how he’d responded then. How different things were, now.

“And what about you?” she asked. “Will you invite your friends?”

“What few I have,” he chuckled, running a thumb over her knuckles. “But this is for your sake, Belle, not mine. We should present that we’re happy to the people who are important to you. And then, together, here, you and I can … work on being happy. Making it the truth.”

She stared at him. “Why?”

“I already told you. I like you,” he said, pulling up her hand, kissing her fingers, and yes, how different things were, now.

“May I speak frankly?” he said.

“Have you not been, already?”

He smiled, but it was small, sad. “I never thanked you, all these years. For what you did, for Bae.”

Her eyes widened, and a lump formed in her throat. “I did nothing. I couldn’t save him.”

“But you tried,” he said, lifting her chin, and had she looked away from him? 

“You looked and looked,” he said. “Swam and swam. All over that spring, searching for him.”

“Is that what this all is, then? Your way of thanking me?”

He shook his head, and his eyes looked so heavy. “You know it’s not.”

She nodded, but still couldn’t quite look up, just couldn’t. He squeezed her fingers, waited for her to respond. 

“I didn’t know you knew that,” she said. “About me looking for him.”

“Of course I did. The police report.”

She nodded. Nodded and nodded, though something in her belly curdled. “The police report,” she said, “of course.”

His hand curled around her back, pulled her into him, and she let him. “Not even his own mother would have done that for him, Belle. You looked. You cared.”

She wasn’t sure what to say, was unsure if the hug was for comfort, for the sensuality she was feeling, or both. Either way she was suddenly busy with his scent, his warmth. She allowed her nose to skim his throat, her face to rest against his neck, and accepted his embrace. 

“I never found him,” she said again. “You, you lost your son. I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “But I want to thank you,” he said again, emphasized with a hand rubbing her back. “For trying.”

She breathed him in, that smell of earth, woods, rain! How it caught her! She sighed, decided to allow herself some touch, and placed a hand on his chest. The one not already interlaced with his fingers, and sought out his heartbeat, counted its thump. He hummed when her fingers trailed higher, connected with his skin.

“Do I still unnerve you, or have I warmed you?”

“Both,” she said.

He angled his head down towards her, waited for her to look up at him. She let her hand move up from his chest, touch his mouth. He closed his eyes, let her fingers play.

“Please,” he said. “Let me.”

She nodded, and he dipped his head down to kiss her. He used the arm around her back to pull her closer, her chest into his, and he lifted the hand entwined with hers, raising her arm, wrapping it around his neck. 

He kissed her and kissed her, hands hot at her waist, breath hot in her mouth, until the warmth was too much, the nerves, and she had to pull away, hide in his neck, his scent, again.

This was the tangle I wanted, she thought, the twist.

Then why do I feel so? So?

“I should go,” she said.

He blinked, dazed, and clasped the back of her head to ease her up to look at him, her mouth brushing his collarbone. She blinked back, dazed, a pair of glassy eyes and swollen lips. 

“You’re welcome to stay,” he said. “I’d like it if you’d stay.”

“Stay … where?”

“With me,” he said.

“With you?”

He sighed, hands cupping her neck, thumbs rubbing her jaw. He let one hand trail down, follow the trace of her neckline, skimming where the fabric of her dress met her skin, down her chest, her breast. 

“With me,” he said again.

The tangle, the twist! What she wanted, all along!

“I,” she said, and couldn’t finish.

“Or … your room,” he said. “You can stay in your room. You can get used to it, before we move you over fully.”

But she shook her head, started to pull away. “I should go,” she said again.

He looked at her, his own glassy eyes and swollen lips, disappointment there, and it tasted good. His request tasted good, his disappointment in her leaving tasted good. His lips, his chin, when her lips had been upon them, had tasted so good. Everything was delicious and it made her swallow, ache.

“I should go,” she said, one last time.

He nodded, ran a hand over his face, and released his arms from around her.

They walked to his front door together. He helped ease her coat on, smooth down her shoulders. There was a shake to her hands she couldn’t get rid of, and he grasped them, eyes furrowing.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Can I walk you home?”

That good taste was still on her tongue, making her belly warm, her tongue red, and she could do it if she wanted to. She could stay with him, tonight. She could stay with him forever.

“I’m fine. A walk will do me good. Thank you, for tonight. It was … it was perfect, Silas,” she said.

And he smiled. That strange one that made her fall where she stood.

“You’re welcome, Belle.”

He let her go into the night. She walked, made her way home, took several gulps of air, let the chill cool off her warmth, that taste, before it fell down her throat and overwhelmed her overthumping heart.

Oh, there was a shake in her hands she couldn’t get rid of. Because, yes, his touch and his taste and his invitation had warmed her, won her, made her belly warm and hungry, made her legs want to open, wrap around his waist.

But there was that curdle in her belly, too.

Because, yes, she had told the police that she’d gone into the water looking for Bae after she saw him go under. She’d been soaking wet when they found her, of course she told them she went in after him. 

But how frantic her search had been, how panicked, how she swam, and swam, and swam, she didn’t say that. That wasn’t on the police report. 

She’d never told anyone that.

  
  


**Seven**

The next several days were wonderful, and she chewed her lip.

He took his request for a real wedding seriously, however small it would end up being. They went to a cake shop for a tasting together, they sorted a simple playlist of mutually liked songs together, nearly made her father faint when they went to him to pick out flowers together. Today was the dress shop, a fitting at 3:00pm together, and she chewed her lip.

It was wonderful. He held her hand, he kissed her, he called her beautiful. He touched her face and wanted to know her, wanted her to touch and know him as well. It was wonderful.

But the worm in her stomach kept popping forward, speaking up.  _ Look closer! Pay attention! _

The fitting was any moment now, and she collected the last of the day’s book returns while she prepared to leave. A local middle school class had stopped in for books, returning last week’s selections, and she read off the titles as she scanned them in.

_ Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde _

_ My Doppelgänger Ate My Homework _

_ Stranger in a Strange Land _

_ Tales from the Isles: Changelings & Other Fae _

_ The Boy Who Lost His Face _

She blinked, and thought.

Blinked again, and chastised herself for seeing something just because she wanted to see it.

She finished with the last of the books, grabbed her things, and headed for the dress shop.

Gold wasn’t yet there, so she took a moment to browse the dresses, to remember the last time she’d been here, so long ago. This was the only dress shop in town, not exclusively bridal, not exclusively dresses. In fact, she could see Archie in the corner, browsing bowties and tweed jackets, and offered him a wave when she caught his eye. He waved back, and she turned again to the dresses she was eyeing, so clearly white, so clearly bridal, and wondered what he’d think.

The last time he’d seen her, she was wearing the last dress she’d purchased from here. Not bridal, but white, simple, obvious enough for what she’d been doing. The dress with the high neck but open back, the one she had hoped to tempt, or even annoy Gold with. She swallowed, remembering what had actually ended up happening with that dress. Forest, rain, Gold’s hands. She swallowed, and swallowed again.

“Hello, good to see you!”

Belle turned around, Archie having come up just behind her. She smiled, tried to mask how he’d nearly made her jump.

“I received the invitation for your next, uh, for your wedding. Looking forward to it. It looks like you two worked out what you needed to work out. That’s wonderful.”

“I. Yes. Yes. We did, we worked it out. Thank you,” she fumbled.

“Scary thing that happened to him. Amazing that you were there to save him. What a story for the kids, huh?”

Belle’s mouth opened, but she didn’t know what to say.

Archie stepped in a bit closer, lowered his voice. “He seems happier these days, Belle. I mean it when I say I’m glad you two worked it out. You’re clearly a very good influence on him.”

He tipped his head, turning to leave, to bid her goodbye. Belle blinked, mid-nod to thank him once again, her hands hovering somewhere over a gown. 

“Archie?” she said.

He turned around, head up at attention.

“He doesn’t seem … different to you?”

Archie looked at her, hesitated. She could see his mind working, perhaps wondering if speaking so plainly to the town tyrant’s future wife wasn’t so wise after all.

“Not at all,” he said neutrally.

“Archie, please. I’m being serious.”

He stepped closer again, lowered his voice again. “He nearly drowned, Belle.”

“He  _ did _ drown. I’m the one who …” she said, but couldn’t quite say the rest. 

Archie waited a moment, wet his lips when she didn’t speak. “Well. That kind of experience changes a person. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that it affected his … brain. His psyche. In a way.”

“He … he smells different,” she whispered.

The shop bell rang. They both looked up to see Gold entering.

“Congratulations again,” said Archie, taking his leave.

Gold gave little notice of the man as he passed him, his eyes only for Belle as he approached.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, a hand reaching for her waist, a kiss going to her forehead. They had fallen into an easy rhythm of touch and kiss, each day with its new appointments always ending up with hands and lips somewhere. Flowers or cake, music or dresses, each seemed to provide an excuse for it. The easy kind that could happen in public, but after the wedding, what then? When they were back in his house, in a bedroom, in the dark?

She blinked against his chin as he greeted her, thinking. “This lateness doesn’t bode well for our wedding day,” she said.

He chuckled. “I promised I’d be there this time. And  _ on _ time. You can trust me.”

Trust, she thought.

He quickly busied himself making suggestions and grabbing recommendations, gowns and veils and shoes, and wasn’t it supposed to be bad luck to see the bride in her dress before the wedding day? She didn’t care, she realized. She liked this, she liked him being there. For all of it, the music, the cake, the flowers, the dress. How fun he was, how caring. How her trust in him had bloomed, had grown, she liked it, she liked him.

The shop had a dressing room with plenty of mirrors that allowed her to view her selections from all sides, but was also small, keeping Gold outside waiting for her until she was ready to show him each dress. He’d adore her each time, placing his hands atop her waist and shoulders in the pretense of helping fabric to fit. 

She stood in the dressing room now, reviewing their latest selection. A form fitting gown that dipped low in the front, long v down her chest that made the small rise of her breasts seem impressive. She worried it’d be too much for this new friends-and-family wedding they were having.

She grabbed the first of the veils he’d brought her, started to fumble with it and get an idea of how it would look. Her hair was currently long and tumbling down her back, and would she wear it up for the wedding? She smiled at herself, fitting the veil’s comb into place on her hair, marveling at how very far their courthouse arrangement had come, from a man never showing, to silly veils in silly dressing rooms.

She pulled the veil over her face, and blinked at herself in the mirror. Her reflection peered back, still thing in the mirror, and she held her hand up. The gauzy fabric created a halo around her, blurry hue, everything white, too opaque, and she frowned. Her face in the mirror, she could just make out her features, could just see her hand, and she thought of the spring, when she’d placed her hand inside the water. 

Her hand up, reaching, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. White veil, white hand, and the longer she held her hand up, the further it reached, the more it seemed to disappear into the stillness of the mirror. 

She jerked her hand back, yanked the veil off.

“Belle?” he said outside. “Are you all right?”

“Come here,” she said.

The curtain parted and he rushed inside, closing it behind him and cramping them into the small space.

“What’s wrong?” he said, grasping her shoulders, then her hands, where they fumbled with the veil.

“The mirror,” she said, voice cloudy. “It reminded me of. I thought I saw,” and she closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m being ridiculous.”

“You thought you saw?” he prompted, and his hands cupped her face, pulling her up to look at him.

“The spring,” she said. “The way the veil, when I looked through it,” she fumbled, and he glanced down at the fabric where she held it. “I looked at the mirror, at myself through the veil, and it -- I thought I saw the spring, and then my hand, and,” she huffed a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m not making sense.”

He frowned, but pulled her into him, grasping the veil and tossing it aside. He held her, and she wrapped her arms around him, feeling embarrassed, silly. Ages ago, before weddings, before boys disappearing, she used to go to the spring for comfort, for a place to hide and find solace. In his embrace, now, holding her in this small fitting room, she felt some of that solace again, that comfort, and she sighed into his chest. 

“No veils, I think,” he said, and she smiled something watery.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “None of that made sense, I’m sure.”

He shook his head. “The spring is frightening, Belle. We have terrible, shared experiences with it. I have my moments too, where the fear comes back. But it’s all right. We’ve come out of it, you and I. We’ve come out of it, whatever memories try to crawl back and haunt us.”

He wasn’t quite making sense either, she realized. The way he was looking at her, cupping her face, looking steadily into her eyes. Like he was waiting for something.

“Silas?” she said.

His eyes searched hers, his thumbs touched her lips. “I’m here, Belle,” he said. “I’m here,” and though she didn’t understand, his words eased her, soothed her.

He pulled back, ran his hands down her face, her shoulders. 

“No veils,” he said again, gentle smile. “This dress, though. God, have you seen it on you? Your breasts look amazing.”

She blinked and laughed. Shook her head, a spell lifted.

“You don’t think it’s too much?” she said, looking at themselves in the mirror.

“Not too much. It’s missing something, actually,” he said.

“Oh?”

She watched his reflection reach into his pocket, and her brows furrowed.

“Do you know why I was late?”

“No.”

The hand in the mirror dug for a moment, then retrieved a small, velvet box. Her eyes widened. 

“You’ll be needing this, sweetheart. I should have given this to you ages ago.”

He turned from view and busied himself with the box, soon turning back with a ring was in his hand, atop his palm and gleaming. 

Belle was unfamiliar with cuts, carats, settings, but the style he’d chosen for her was delicate, divine, perfect.

“Silas,” she said.

“Let’s see if it fits, shall we?”

He grasped her hand before she could move, sliding the ring on her finger with a smooth motion, and she let him. A smile alighted his face as he tested the fit, inspected her hand. He sighed, a beautiful sound, and kissed the ring where it sat on her finger, then turned her hand up and kissed her palm. She blinked at the motion, blushed.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“More than I can say,” she said, that watery voice returning. “I, I need to get a ring for you.”

“You don’t,” he said, digging around in his other pocket. “I took the liberty of, well, here,” he said, depositing a ring into her hand, no box. It matched hers in color and width, though it was modestly more plain. In a rush of euphoria from the whole moment, of the two of them crammed into a small dressing room, her in her dress, he in his suit, already looking like bride and groom, she grasped his hand, pulled it up, and slid the ring onto his finger. 

He smiled, and kissed her.

“Does this count then?” she laughed, gentle, against his mouth. “Is this it, are we married?”

“Perhaps. But only if you promise we’ll honeymoon right after.”

The real wedding was only a few days away, and they hadn’t talked about a honeymoon, had they? The thought sent a thrill through her, allowed her an excitement that she’d been suppressing this whole time, and why, why?

Silas ran a hand down her throat, let it edge down to the dip between her collarbones, the dip between her breasts. He smiled at her, warm thing, and she suddenly couldn’t remember a time she’d ever not liked him, trusted him.

Everything was wonderful, and Belle chewed her lip.

  
  


**Eight**

She woke with a dry gasp, coughing, a hand scrambling to her nightstand for water.

The dream again, and how many times was that? It was ruining her sleep, keeping her dry-eyed and red-rimmed each night, exhausted and swaying by morning.

She shook, pulled her covers up closer, took more sips of water. What had woken her this time? The wind wasn’t howling, no tree scratching her window to rouse her. But she’d heard it, the scratching. Small this time, quiet, but there. She looked around, waiting for the answer to present itself. But there was nothing, just silence, just her black room, moonlight peeking through, none the wiser to what ailed her. 

She shook, shook and shook, and wished desperately that she wasn’t alone.

She didn’t have to be, she thought.

Her days with him had been so good.

She closed her eyes, and thought of the dream. His face, the one in her dream, always so soft as it rose from the water, as it looked at her. It wasn’t the face she’d rescued, the frightening one with the blue lips and the rolled back eyes. Gray, bloated. Hard, angry. No, the face in her dream was the one she’d been spending her days with, her good, good days with. The face from their date in his home, the face from the dress shop as it comforted her, slipped a ring on her finger. The face she thought of when she eased herself to sleep, ran her hands over her breasts and between her legs.

She sighed. She had a hard time reconciling the two faces, the drowned man, the kind man. Had a hard time agreeing that they belonged to the same person.

The same person. They couldn’t possibly be the same person.

She wiped her face, rose, and reached for her phone.

“Belle?” he said, his voice mussed with sleep.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” she said, her own voice groggy from first use.

“What’s wrong? Is everything all night?”

She shook her head, though he couldn’t see her. “Does your offer for me to stay with you still stand?”

“You want to come over?

“I, I had a bad dream,” she said, then, away from the phone, “a terrible realization.”

“A bad dream?”

“I’m frightened. I’m sorry. I know it’s silly. I’m frightened. Can I come over?”

“Yes. Yes. Belle, please,” he said, and she could hear him rising. “Come over. I’m here for you. I’m waiting,” then, away from the phone, “I’ve been waiting for you.”

She ran to her front door, pulled her coat on over her nightgown, tugged on her boots. In no time she was out in the night, in the stars, the dark, on her way to his home.

“I’m sorry,” she said again when he answered his door. “I know it’s late.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, pulling her inside. “You’re welcome here. You’re welcome to stay.”

He embraced her, soothed her, offered to take her coat. She let him, though she only wore her nightgown underneath. She smiled sheepishly, and he smiled in return. He was only in his pajamas too, after all. Rumpled night shirt and pants, rumpled hair, and she liked the look of him, liked the way he clearly liked the look of her.

“You had a nightmare?” he asked.

“The spring,” she explained.

“Sweetheart,” he said, and she liked when he said that. “Darling,” he said, pulling her close, and she liked it when he touched her.

He took her hand in his, led her down the hallway, past the entryway, past the living room. Past the large dining room where they didn’t eat, past the small kitchen nook where they did. She got a bit lost as to where they were headed, his home so large and winding, but she caught her bearings at a pair of french doors. 

The ones that led to the green room, the ones that had been open that stormy morning she had come looking for him, so long ago.

The pair of french doors that had been open, yes, had shown her a mirror, yes, large thing that hung in the hallway, she remembered, now. She paused their walk, now, tugged back on his hand to pause in front of it, that large mirror in the hallway.

She no longer had a wet ragdoll of a reflection. Her hair was dry and pretty, tumbling down her shoulders, down her back. Her skin looked flushed instead of chilled this time, red instead of pebbled and pale. She’d been alone in her previous reflection, desperate and searching for a missing man. But now a hand could be seen, clearly clasped in hers, clearly the man she’d been searching for, clearly found.

But her reflection frowned. Frowned and shook, at the hand she held. 

“He’s not here,” her reflection said.

“Belle?” the man beside her said.

Belle’s mouth opened, and her tongue went dry. She looked at the man beside her, the hand she held. The soft man, the kind man, and felt an ache inside of her yelling. Deep ache, long ache, louder than any worm that could offer her warning.

She stepped up to the man. Reached for his shirt, his buttons.

“I want to see it,” she said.

“What?”

“I need to see it,” she said.

He startled at her sudden motion, took a step back, retreated right into the wall with a bump. Her hands pushed on, relentless, tearing at buttons and pushing at his shirt. He held his hands aside, let her work without further flinching, though his brows furrowed and his questions went unanswered. He let her move, let her work.

When her fingers skimmed the skin of his chest, he sighed, beautiful sound. He let his head fall back, let his hands fall forward, settle on her waist.

“Yes, Belle,” he said, gentle coo. “Touch me. I’ve been waiting for you to touch me.”

“I want to see it,” she said. “Your tattoo.”

“Tattoo?” he said, like a dream, and would this be it? Would he fumble, fear, admit?

“Yes,” he said instead, crooked smile as he helped her ease his shirt off. “Right here.”

His shirt fell to the floor and she stopped breathing. His chest was so smooth and so pretty, leading down to a taut stomach that made her mouth want to open and her tongue hang out. But there, up on his right shoulder, small and black, faded with age, oh God, it was there. A small lizard, and she couldn’t help reaching up to run her fingers over its tail, its head.

“It’s here,” she marveled, brows furrowing. “When you were drunk in your 20s,” she whispered, and had she been wrong all along?

“Yes,” he said. “Back in Glasgow.”

She stared at him, her beautiful man, Silas Gold. His tattoo, just where he’d said it’d be.

“Belle,” he said, touching her face, her throat. She blinked at him, dazed, falling. His hands were dropping to her shoulders, sliding under her straps, tugging her nightgown down. He watched her, eyes searching her as he tugged, as he exposed her chest to his touch, his gaze, straps falling down her arms, nightdress pooling at her waist.

“Touch me,” he said again. “Please. And let me touch you.”

Silas Gold. Her beautiful man, her kind man, tattoo or not. Whoever he was, she wanted to touch him, and be touched.

She nodded.

He cupped her breast, kneaded, pulled her closer into him, let his face fall into her neck. He opened his mouth to her, said her name maybe, or maybe she said his. She felt his tongue along her neck as he spoke, as he whispered whatever he was saying to her while he plucked her nipple, pushed and pulled his hand into her skin. She felt a whimper rise out of her, and covered her mouth in embarrassment.

“None of that,” he said, pulling her hand away. “You’re beautiful. Beautiful when you speak, when you blink, when you moan. I want to hear it, hear how you feel when I touch you. You’re so beautiful, have I told you?”

She shook her head, and she didn’t know why. She pushed up onto her toes, pushed her mouth into his, and he accepted her gladly, accepted her lips, her breasts pushing into his chest, and oh how the connection felt! Her skin, right against his!

He kissed her, kissed her, kneaded his hands into her breasts, her back, down to her buttocks. He pushed his thigh between her legs, pushed his leg up into her, and she whimpered again, covered her mouth again.

“Don’t,” he said, grabbing her wrist. 

“I feel strange,” she said, that whimper. “Hot, too hot.”

“Me too,” he said. “Do you feel hot here?” he said, and he pushed a hand down between her legs, palm cupping her, and her eyes widened.

“Yes,” she said, feeling herself rub against him.

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you look right now?” he said into her ear, harsh whisper. “How fuckable?”

“Fuck,” she said, familiar word, good word. “That’s what I want. I want you to, please, please,”

“To fuck you?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” he said, nipping her ear, running his nose along her jaw. 

He scooped her up against him as best he could, her trembling, warm body, jelly legs only just working as she followed him. They leaned against the wall for support, like they did with the trees, she thought, so long ago. He led her into a bedroom, hers or his, she couldn’t remember, couldn’t tell, it was so dark. He bid her lay down, and she felt her body stretching, elongating along the bed, relishing in the hot feeling thumping in her chest, pulsing between her legs.

“Oh!” she moaned, rubbing her hands over her breasts, between her legs, and his hands followed after her movements.

She felt him tugging again, tugging the fabric that had bunched around her waist, pulling it down past her buttocks, down her legs. Her body nearly completely exposed, save for her panties. 

His weight dipped beside her on the bed, and she opened her eyes, unaware she’d even had them closed. He was hovering above her, eyes blinking into hers, and he smiled. She smiled back, and he started nuzzling her head, her neck, her breasts, taking her flesh into his mouth. His body was long against her, lean, sinewy, taut, and she loved the look of him.

Her eyes trailed down to where he was still dressed, where his sleepclothes hid his erection. She could see the outline of him, his cock pulling against his fabric, and she reached a hand forward tentatively. He eyed her movements, shy things, and nodded when she looked at him. 

He sighed as she wrapped herself around him, felt his length, his hardness.

“Do you feel me?” he said. “What you do to me?”

She nodded, marveling at her hand around him, how thick he felt, his cock. 

“You make me warm, hot. Hard,” he said, cupping her hand where she felt him. “When you touch me. When you let me touch you.”

“I like it,” she said.

He kissed her again, his lips swollen and wet and moving against her, and she felt a rhythm start in her body, in her tongue. A gentle rocking of her hand on his cock, of her hips against the air, against nothing. He noticed, and brought a hand down to her stomach, to her groin, helping to ease her.

She whimpered more, moaned, and he lifted her hand away from him, pinned her wrists to the bed in an effort to keep her from covering her mouth so he could hear as he moved down,  dragged his teeth against her skin.

He freed one of his hands, brought both of her wrists to his other hand so he could still hold her, pin her down. 

“Why do I feel like this?” she said, wriggling.

“Watch,” he said, as he trailed his free hand down her body, her breasts, her stomach, to the top of her panties.

“Are you looking, now?” he said. “Don’t close your eyes.” He pushed his hand into her panties, and her eyes widened as she felt him touch her bare, and how wet she felt, how warm!

“Oh!” she cried out again, that unconscious wiggle against his palm, and she tried hiding her moan in her arm. He nuzzled his head into her forehead, helped coax her back up.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” he said, into her forehead, her hair. “Waiting to touch you, to love you.”

“Love me?” she said.

“And to fuck you,” he smiled.

“Fuck me,” she moaned.

“May I? Will you let me?”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes blinking into his. “Yes. Please.”

“Do you still feel strange? Hot?”

“Yes,” she said, closing her eyes a moment, her head and body swirling. “Do you feel like this too?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I like it,” she said, opening her eyes, looking at her beautiful man, smiling when he smiled at her.

“Me too. I like it too. Look,” he said, and he lifted his hand, lifted her panties so she could see, and she looked down. “Open your legs,” he said, and she moved them wider, watched as he lifted his palm just higher, so she could just see where his fingers connected with her inside her panties.

“Watch,” he said, and she stared as he pushed his fingers into her, sunk his digits inside, watched them disappear up to the knuckle. She heard herself whimper again, moaned as he pulled his fingers out, sunk them back in again. Out, in, out, in.

“You’re fucking me,” she heard herself say. “You’re fucking me.”

“Just my fingers, sweetheart. Do you like it?”

“I’m going to come,” she said, feeling her eyes roll back into her head, her hips wriggle down for more of his fingers, her walls grip him every time he pushed inside.

“You feel amazing,” he said. “So wet. So warm. Oh, sweetheart,” he sighed.

She moaned in return, unable to form words, her head moving from side to side, her hips rocking into the hand fucking her. He groaned, moved his mouth back to hers, and kissed her, kissed her, forming a rhythm between fingers and tongue.

He moved his thumb up, let it start bumping her clit on his strokes in, and she keened against him. When he felt her walls flutter, her hips starting to tremble, he pushed his fingers in deep, deep as they would go, and moaned against the way her cunt gripped him, milking his fingers, making his cock twitch. She screamed, and pressed herself down onto his fingers, down and down, deeper, deeper, shaking as she came.

When she came down, he removed his fingers, making her shake and cry out. He released her hands, and she brought them to her mouth again, biting her palms and scrunching her eyes closed. She curled onto her side, and he held her, hugged her, pulled her into him and rubbed his hands up and down her back.

When she settled, he lifted her chin up to look at him. “Are you all right, darling? Was it too much?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Too much. Way too much,” and he rubbed her back, her face. “But I want you to do it again.” 

He chuckled, and she rose up onto wobbly knees, palms on the bed beside him.

“Take off your pants,” she said, but immediately set about completing the task herself.

She tugged and tugged, much like he’d done with her, until the garment was thrown aside and he lay long and nude on the bed before her. She moved up, running her hands over his thighs, his sides, his chest, then down again. She gripped his cock, and he sighed.

“You’re so beautiful, have I told you?” she said, and she knelt down to lick his chest, his nipples.

His hips started their own unconscious cant, into her grip, small whimper escaping his throat. Her hair was long and tumbling, and he couldn’t see her, so he brought his hands up, gathered her strands, framed them to one side of her, other hand reaching up to caress her face. 

She licked and sucked him, tortured him the way he’d tortured her, and he blinked at the sight of her, her tongue and teeth upon him. Her grip on his cock was tight, and she heard his breath growing heavier and deeper, faster. She wondered if he was close to coming, and repositioned herself to straddle him.

She still had her panties on, and moved them to the side so she could take him inside of her, but he shot up suddenly, grasped her shoulders.

She blinked back at him, his sudden rise, his face so close. His eyes as he stared at her, the way they fluttered when he peeled her hand from his cock.

“What made you change your mind?” he asked. “Why are you letting me touch you? Why are you letting me inside you?”

She blinked again, that hot feeling in her chest churning as he spoke. “Why does anyone let them inside them?”

And he gripped her back, her shoulders, head tilting at her question, ache in his eyes, sorrow. “Because you know I love you,” he hissed, fervent whisper against her neck, her cheek.

“And I love you,” she said, eyes widening as she said it, the truth she’d feared for so long.

He moved his head up, nodded his forehead into her, held her gaze as he flipped them. Lay her back down on the bed, crawled down her body, slow and intentional. He moved to peel her panties off of her, their mixed sweat and her come making them sticky, clinging. 

“A rose,” he said, down near her hip.

She sat up, looked down to where he stared at her, pulling her panties the rest of the way down her legs. He tossed them aside, then knelt down close to her stomach again, bringing his hands down on either side of her hips.

“Yes,” she said, as he stared at her. “My tattoo. Don’t you remember?”

He blinked up at her, and she stared at the man she’d just admitted to loving. The one she’d desperately torn his shirt from to try and confirm a wild suspicion. His shirt lay in the hallway, somewhere, far away. She wondered, before, if after demanding to see his tattoo, he’d urgently demand to see hers. But he didn’t, he hadn’t. He stared at it like it was a new and beautiful thing he was learning of for the first time.

He brought his face down to her hip, opened his mouth, licked her petals.

“It suits you,” he said, when he emerged, never really answering her.

He crawled atop her, his body lean and strong against her, his chest connecting with hers. His weight felt perfect on her, his hips nestling into the valley of her legs, and she lifted and wrapped herself around him, rubbing his sides with her thighs. His weight pressed her into the mattress, his eyes blinked into hers, and she cupped his face, pushed his hair back and tucked the soft strands behind his ears.

“Is this good?” he asked, his lips speaking against her fingers. “Do you want this?”

She could say no. She could push him off, stop, ask him why he didn’t remember roses, why he smelled like the forest.

“Yes,” she said. “Fuck me. Love me.”

He eased his cock into her, and she started to pant as he stretched her, filled her. She whimpered, wiggling her hips down again, trying to take him deeper, fuller. 

“Oh God, oh God, oh God, Silas,” she chanted, and he let her wriggle, fuck herself down on him until he felt she was ready for more, ready for his full push inside. He gripped her shoulders once more, leaned down to kiss her, and started to thrust his hips.

He was so thick, so full inside her! She whimpered and keened against his mouth, every pump he gave her, in and out, in and out, his hips not yet flush to hers, and she pushed her hips down more, again and again, trying to take more of him in. “Oh god, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, Silas!” her chant changed, breathy mewl into his shoulder.

He thrust harder, pulling his hips back and snapping them forward, losing himself in her, his mouth starting to drag against her cheek, her neck. Oh how perfect her cunt felt, how wet, how warm, and he was almost there, now. His hips starting to connect with hers as they grew frantic, pushing, fucking.

“Do you like it?” he asked against her neck, her cries. “My cock, my body, fucking you?”

“Yes!” she cried, feeling the sting of wet leaving her eyes, and he reached up a hand to wipe her face, cup and cradle her.

He kissed her, pressed his nose to her forehead. “It’s good to have a body. Good to breathe, good to touch you, fuck you. Good to fuck and touch your body. Oh, Belle!”

She blinked against him, more wet, trying to understand his strange words, his strange smile. He pushed in harder, his groin starting to rub against her clit with every stroke in, how deep he’d fallen into her, how full. Her chant changed to a constant whimper, unable to form words anymore for how deeply he fucked her, how hard he was pushing in. 

She arched her back, pressed her breasts into him, pressed her hips down as hard as she could. Her head fell back, her cunt suddenly gripping him, milking him, harder for how much thicker his cock was than his fingers. She sobbed, coming around him, shaking, one hand digging her nails into his back, the other into his scalp. He pressed into her, halted his thrusts while she came, let her hands and cunt grip him while she shook. 

When her body calmed, when her muscles stopped shaking and disappeared, he rose up onto his knees, grabbed her thighs to spread them wider, grabbed underneath her hips for better leverage. He pumped into her, chanting her name, and she arched her back again, mouth open in a long cry as he moved inside her. When he came, he let out a similar cry, long and moaning, to the ceiling above as he bruised her hips, nails digging notches into her skin while he cried his last thrusts into her. 

They fell to the bed together, panting and hot, winded and dying. She curled small again, rubbing her palms into her eyes, all that wet,, and he did the same, until he felt ready to reach around and embrace her again. 

“Good?” he said, voice shaking, trembling. “Are you good? Are you alright? Did I hurt you?”

“Yes,” she said, voice no better than his. “But it was good. So good. I’d do it again. And again and again.”

They panted for long moments, the darkness settling around them as they caught their breaths, their minds, as their bones grew back. He rubbed her back again, gentle hand up and down her spine, and she scooted closer into his arms, his chest.

“Do you feel better?” he asked, slurred, sleepy, into her shoulder.. “You came here because of your nightmare. You were frightened. I wanted to help you. Did I help?”

She blinked up at him, stared at him, his sleepy face. Ah her arrival, ages ago, whenever that was. She’d felt so uncertain, then, so embattled inside. She felt embattled now. The mirror as it spoke to her, his tattoo, hers. The answers she tried to find inside of him, but they’d gotten entwined, instead. She’d led him inside of her, instead.

“You helped,” she said, and he smiled, blinking long, slow.

She let her own eyes flutter, and for a moment they dozed.

“What’s your favorite color?” she asked, before she completely went under.

“Pink,” he said, closed eyes and sleepy mouth.

“Mmm,” she hummed. “I wondered that. Your house, your wardrobe.”

“Your cunt,” he cooed.

She gave a small, sleepy laugh, and cuddled further into him.

“Are you really someone else?” she asked, when she was sure he was asleep, when she was sure he couldn’t hear her. But he smiled in his sleep, that strange smile she knew so well. The one that had become her favorite part of him. The one that made her feel the love that she’d never felt before, that she never thought she’d feel.

She loved Silas, whoever he was, and he loved her.

  
  


**Nine**

Her body ached. Terrible, all over.

Her thighs and her stomach and her arms and between her legs, inside. She ached terribly inside, where he’d pushed so deeply, for so long. She clenched her thighs together, wincing, remembering. The night felt so far away, so long ago, sunlight streaming in and making it all feel like a dream. A dark secret she’d indulged in, such filthy things they’d done, and now it was morning, and she was waking, blushing.

She couldn’t remember a time when lovemaking had been so intense, so treacherous. The way he’d held her, looked at her. Everything so long, so deep. She was having a hard time remembering making love to anyone else ever, ever, at all.

She stretched, groaned. Felt his body stir beside her.

His eyes blinked open, staring, and she stared back. Their bodies still naked on the bed, never having made it under the covers. Naked as they’d been last night, as the day they’d been born.

He turned towards her, face scrunching with his own wince as he moved, and she smiled, small. They said nothing, scooting closer together again, cupping each other’s faces, necks. He ran his thumb over her cheek, his fingers under her jaw, and watched her, blinked into her, quiet, staring.

They sat long moments, sun rising around them, slowly filling the room. Blue, she saw, so it must be her room they were in. She found herself smiling. How funny it was, the pretense of separate rooms under the same roof they’d soon be sharing. Two rooms, as though they wouldn’t eventually end up in one, tangled as they were now, naked and satiated. Who had chosen the two rooms, she wondered. The Gold before he drowned, or the Gold after?

“Silas,” she said, touching his mouth.

He touched her mouth in return, still staring, still quiet. Watching her, touching her, and it made her mouth part, her eyes blink. He leaned forward to kiss her, and she let him, let him kiss her long and deep, then ease into smaller plucks. Tired plucks, sleepy plucks, lazy kissing, forever kissing, quiet in their bed as the sun finished rising. 

She rose, hovered above him, moved to straddle him, and he watched her. Slow, lazy movements, hair in her face, and he reached up to push it away.

She could see him so clearly in the sunlight, he wasn’t the hazy, dark mystery of last night. He looked just like Mr. Gold, the sharp cheekbones, the thin mouth, the soft hair. She touched his face, his nose, his mouth. His chest, so pretty, so smooth. His cock, already hard and ready, and she positioned herself above him, and he watched her, steady eyes, hands on her hips.

At his nod, she impaled herself atop him.

They sighed together, moved together, slow. She was still so, so terribly sore from last night, but this felt too good, she wanted it too much. This lazy fucking, slow and rythmic, easy. She looked down on him as she moved, him staring up at her, mouth shaking with his breath. He pushed up into her with her strokes down, held her hips, her thighs. Let his thumb press into her small rose tattoo, watched her body, her face, dip and rise atop his cock.

She leaned back, rolling her body on him, easing into their rhythm. Less frantic than last night, tranquil. He came first this time, arching underneath, head lolling back into the pillows, and she rode his body, his twitches, grasped his hands where they bit into her hips as he came, rode him until she found her own pleasure in his aftershocks. 

She let herself fall back onto the bed beside him, let their legs tangle, his arms embrace her as she felt him sticky and seeping from between her thighs. She smiled at feeling, icky, sticky feeling, but she loved it. She loved it. 

“I could bury myself in you,” he said, somewhere buried in her neck.

She reached up, tugging on his hair, his neck, encouraging him to look at her, and he did.

“Are you all right?” he asked after long moments. “Are you sore?”

“Mmm,” she nodded. “Yes. Very sore. You?”

“Very sore,” he smiled, rubbing her back. “Wedding day, today,” he said.

“Wedding day,” she echoed.

That’s right, wedding day, this afternoon. Their real ceremony, today, finally here. Everything they’d spent all these days arranging, the cake, the music, the flowers, the dress. In his garden this afternoon, no more than ten people, small affair. Her friends, his friends, her father. In his garden, where this all began.

“Wedding day,” he repeated. “But I’ve already soiled the bride.”

She smiled at him, cheeky laugh. “She came to you in the night. She knew what she was after.”

“And this morning. I’m the one who’s soiled.”

She laughed again, sat up, let her legs swing over the side of the bed. Gave herself a hearty stretch, moaned for all her aches and soreness. She blinked at the window in front of her, all that sunlight filling the room, making her squint, yawn. What time was it? She heard him sit up behind her, his own stretches and moans, his own aches, yawn.

She rose, fumbled with her discarded panties, nightgown. He watched her with amusement, no help at all. 

She stepped out of the room and into the hallway, tried to remember where the bathroom was. She passed the mirror in the hallway, intentionally ignored it, ignored the french doors, the green room, until she found her destination. She relieved herself, washed her hands in the sink, gasped at the sight of herself in the mirror. Tangled hair, flushed skin, but a silly smile on her face, silly happy smile, and she sighed.

Exiting the bathroom, she let the door close behind her quietly, let her back fall against the wood, let herself breathe a moment, think. Across from her wasn’t a large mirror, but a large portrait, hard to see with the beams of sunlight streaming into the hallway. She crossed over to it, blinked at it, felt her small, happy smile leave her face.

Bae.

Bae and Gold, a photograph of them together when Bae was far younger, years before he’d go wandering and disappearing into any spring. Both of them happy, wide smiles, and it made the curdle in her stomach return, the worm rear its head once more.

_ I thought you’d want to leave Storybrooke. After what happened. _

_ No, Belle. That’s why I so desperately need to stay. _

She felt very, very selfish, suddenly. A woman too easily won over by her own passions, her desires, when a man just wanted to find his son.

_ Is he in there? _

“Belle,” his voice said beside her.

She nearly jumped, making a small, stupid sound, grabbing onto her elbows, and closing her eyes. When she opened them again, Silas was looking at her with an amused smile, head tilted to one side.

“I need to get ready,” she blurted. “Everything to get ready for the wedding is at my place.”

“All right,” he said. “Your dress, and your?”

She nodded. “Shoes. Makeup. Hair stuff,” she said, tugging on a tangled strand. “All that.”

He shrugged. “You’re welcome to get ready here. I could have Dove go gather all those things.”

“Thank you. But,” and she didn’t have a good reason for him, nothing that wouldn’t sound strange and sad and reaching. “I’d just. I’d like to get ready over there.”

His brows furrowed, but he nodded.

She blinked across the hallway again, and he followed her gaze to the portrait on the wall, and they stared at it together.

“Belle,” he said. “I love you.”

He stepped in front of her, and she looked up at him, let her hands settle on his waist as his hands settled on hers.

“I meant it. When I said I loved you.”

She swallowed. “And I love you too, Silas.”

“We did … all those things we did last night. All the things I said to you. If I frightened you,”

“You did, yes,” she said, near laugh, near shout. “You frightened me. You frighten me all the time. Everything about you. Everything that’s happened to you, to us. But I love you, despite myself. I love you.”

She embraced him, too quickly, too sudden, making him nearly jump this time. He wrapped his arms around her, engulfed her, pulled her close and she buried her face in him.

When she pulled away, he smoothed her hair from her face, stared at her with narrowed brows.

“Belle?” he said.

But she sniffed, kissed him one last time, and insisted she be on her way.

She walked home, silly mess of nightgown, boots and coat. His coat, instead of hers, at his insistence that it provided better warmth than the flimsy thing she’d arrived in last night. He wanted her to have something of him, anyway, since she wouldn’t accept a ride home. 

Her apartment was the same as she’d left it last night, dark and quiet and alone and sad, bad dream still sulking somewhere on her bed. She sighed at it, huffed at it, and made her way to her bathroom, her shower.

She stayed in too long, untangling knots one by one, staring at the parts of her body he’d touched, kissed, last night. Felt selfish again, closed her eyes to the hot spray of water beating down on her. She stayed in there a long time, stayed until the hot water ran out and she was freezing.

All of her things were laid out on the bed. Dress, jewelry, lingerie, everything. Bad dream, still trying to haunt her. She took her time getting ready, applying her makeup, styling her hair. More time than the last wedding, when she was convinced he wouldn’t even look at her. 

When finished, she stared at herself in the mirror. She made a very pretty bride, hair tumbling down her back in waves, the stark white dress she wore, floor length and fitted, long v down her chest. He’d made her feel so beautiful, in this dress. The way he’d touched her, looked at her. 

She was ready too early. Had gotten so caught up in her thoughts, her memories, her dream, bad dream, that she’d simply gotten ready, tried to quell her feelings with the methodic tasks of beauty and adornment. She sighed, stared at the clock, at her bed, all the pretty things once laid out on it now the pretty things on her body. She could try to pile her hair atop her head, try to waste the time with an updo, but her hands weren’t skilled enough, and they were too busy gripping the sides of her dress, nearly ruining it.

She was ready too early, but maybe that was a good thing. The portrait she’d seen this morning, the boy, the man, had frightened her, grounded her, pulled her back down to earth from the high she’d been flying, and as much as she hated it, maybe that was a good thing.

Belle stepped out of her apartment, pretty bride ready to be married to the man she loved. She stepped outside, and started walking.

Hours later, at his home, in his garden, Silas Gold stared at his watch, and frowned. 

The few friends he’d invited stood beside him sighing, her father and her friends stood beside him shaking their heads. The songs they’d so carefully selected together played through the air, lights hung in his trees, twinkled amongst the flowers they’d ordered. Cake on the table, small bride and groom figures standing on top. 

A groom standing in the corner, no bride by his side.

“She’ll be here,” Archie said, nervous frown on the man’s mouth. “Any minute.”

But the minutes ticked by, and Belle didn’t arrive for any of them.

Silas Gold stared at his watch, then out past his garden, out past the trees, and frowned.


	3. The Third Wedding

_**The Third Wedding** _ ****

**One**

White shadow in the woods, Belle trudged forward.

Her dress was going to be ruined, nearly as ruined as the last one, and she tugged up her hem, tried to keep it from dragging along the forest floor as she walked. Her hair, long and flowing, pretty, caught on the occasional branch or two, likely tangling again, and what a frightful bride she was going to be. But she trudged on, trudged on, up the path, up to its peak.

The day was cloudy with no rain, though there had been rain in the days before, enough that she could already hear the spring ahead. She was approaching the long dip in the path, and she leaned against a pine, tried to calm her nerves before she approached, continued her walk.

“Belle,” she heard behind her.

She whipped around, heart leaping into her throat. 

She blinked, not seeing anyone, anybody, eyes darting from tree to tree. She put a hand to her face, to her chest, felt her heart. She shook her head, chastised her nerves, her imagination, and turned back around. 

The path before her looked long, dark. She could hear the spring, just ahead, its bubbling, its babbling, rhythmic sound, and she gathered her gown up again to continue her walk. Her fists clenched tight at her chest, fabric and fingers, and she could feel her heart through her skin, her chest, and she continued her walk. 

“Belle,” he said, and her gasp nearly choked her.

She turned around, and there he was, dark shadow on the path. Black suit, white shirt open at the throat, tie undone and hanging. Two hands up on the trees around him, hair mussed, leaning forward, staring, breath heavy as he moved forward.

“Don’t go down there, Belle.”

“Why not?” she asked, clenching her gown, shaking.

“You shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous.”

She took a step back and felt a tree branch snag her hair. She reached up to move it away, keeping her eyes on him. “You came down here. Last time.”

“I didn’t,” he said, and she furrowed her brows. He released his trees, walked towards her, slow, trying not to startle. “Please, Belle. Come here.”

But she shook her head, took another step back.

He watched the motion, frown forming. His eyes glanced behind her. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said again. “It’s dangerous. I’m not here to protect you, anymore.”

“Protect me?” she scoffed.

He nodded. “They take people.”

She stared at him, her beautiful man, her kind man. “Who are you? What are you?”

“You know who I am, Belle. I’m the man who loves you. And you love me. Please.”

He held his hand out to her, offered for her to take it, and she wanted to, she wanted to so much.

He stepped closer, and she felt her back hit a tree. She shook where she clenched her gown, could hear the spring down below. She hadn’t gotten any closer, but it was louder, suddenly, singing high. 

“You used to feel me, here. You used to come down and talk to me,” he said, resting his hand on her fists where they bundled at her chest, and they shook where he grasped her.

“What?”

He stepped closer, other hand coming to her shoulder, her face. The forest, leaning all around them. “I wanted you. So we made a deal.”

“Wanted me?” she blinked. “A deal? With who?”

He looked up, suddenly, up beyond them, down the path, down towards the spring. “Don’t you hear them?” 

That babbling sound, bubbling, growing louder.

“Yes,” she said, marveling at the sound, shaking, shaking. “I, I hear them.”

“We can’t stay here,” he said, his own shakes starting. “We need to leave, Belle, now, please.”

“No,” she shook her head. “I, I,”

“I know why you’re out here,” he said, grasping her shoulders. “I know who you’re looking for. I know this is important to you, but, please.”

“Who?” she said, looking him up and down, trying to understand his face, his hands, his hair.

“You think you failed him, don’t you? That you let him die?” 

“Failed who? Let who die?”

Bae! her mind cried, and she closed her eyes, huffed a breath, felt her eyes sting.

But he shook his head. “He wanted to be here. He came out here. He knew what would happen. He _chose_ it, Belle. He wanted it. And we made a _deal_.”

She opened her eyes, stared at him. Her beautiful man, her kind man, reaching up to hold her face, wipe her cheeks. “We need to leave, Belle,” he said, that babbling growing higher, closer. “We need to leave. Now.”

“Who?” she cried. “ _Who?_ ”

He cupped her face, narrowed his eyes, set his mouth into a thin line as he watched her.

“Mr. Gold.” 

  
  


**Two**

He said it through his teeth, though he wasn’t smiling. 

His eyes were narrowed though they weren’t angry, his fingers gripped her face, her neck, though he wasn’t hurting. Everything was a plea, the man who loved her and she loved him. The woods looming around them, encroaching, gray, coming closer, and he kept arching his back, widening his arms as though to protect her, kept throwing nervous glances towards the spring, that high singing sound, rising. 

“Belle. Belle, _please_ ,” he said.

Her throat was too thick. She was still trying to swallow what he’d told her. Her eyes blinking, staring. 

“Who _are_ you?”

He stared back, rubbing his thumbs into her neck, her skin. “I’m Silas,” he said simply.

She shook her head. “That’s Mr. Gold’s name.”

“That’s … this body’s name,” he said, and she stared again.

Her eyes started fluttering, that harsh sting building, making her sight fuzzy, watery. 

“I wondered,” she said, voice broken. “I came out here, I had to know,” she shook.

“I know, sweetheart,” he said, wiping her face.

“We can’t. We can’t just leave him out here.”

“He _wants_ to be out here,” he emphasized again.

But she shook her head, scrunched her eyes.

“Belle,” he said, tilting her chin up. “Do you really want him back? Do you not crave me, the way I crave you?”

Her lips parted, her tongue so heavy, her throat aching. “Does it matter how much I want you? I feel guilty, for how much I want you, don’t you understand? He deserves his life, he wants to find his son.” 

“And he found him, Belle. He found him! I keep trying to tell you,” he said. “He wants to be out here. He’d been searching, so long, and he found him.”

The wind started to pick up, the gray, swirling around them, the trees arching closer. He wrapped an arm around her, pulled his bride into him, frantic groom out in the woods.

“Please, Belle,” he said. “We need to go.”

But she grabbed onto his lapels, trying to steady herself, to look at him more fully. “Bae is out here, after all?”

He nodded.

“But I looked for him,” she said, her eyes stinging. “I looked. I looked!”

He pulled her closer, rubbed her back, tried to steer her towards the path. “I know. You swam, and swam, looking for him.”

“How do you know that?” she sniffed. “I don’t see how you could _possibly_ know that. When you thanked me.”

He angled his face down to hers, took a small moment to lick his lips, set his eyes into hers. “Because I swam with you, Belle.”

The sound of the spring was so loud! They were nowhere near it, surely, yet it sounded right at their feet. She looked down, down to her soiled dress, the dirt path, the forest floor, and there, trickling closer, small webs of water, up the path and towards them.

“Belle,” he said, that plea.

In her dreams, she had seen faces, so many faces. She felt them now, down by the spring as she looked in its direction, felt them all, looking at her. Hungry, reaching.

She trembled, and nodded.

Silas pulled her closer, gripped her tight, and she let her small body fold her into him. Let him steer her away, let his pleas finally take her back down the path.

The sense of urgency eased, stilled, the longer they walked, the further away they got from the spring. His grip grew less wild, less frantic, his arm didn’t have to wrap her so tight, shifted to a simple hand hold.

“If you swam with me,” she said, halfway down the path, “why didn’t you help me find him?”

He looked at her, sad, trying. “I can’t … give you someone, who doesn’t want to be found. But I swam with you. I tried to comfort you, while you were in pain.”

“Where is he? Where is his body?”

“Not all bodies come back out, Belle. Not all bodies want to.”

They emerged from the path together, mangey bride and groom, covered in dirt, in pine, in forest. They walked in silence, hands linked, down the streets of Storybrooke, back to his home, back to his garden.

He kept a firm grip on her hand. Kept looking at her, kept checking she was by his side, like he was afraid she’d disappear if he didn’t keep watch. She blinked back at him each time, marveled.

When they came upon his home, his garden, she breathed at the sight before her, able to forget the forest, the spring, just for a moment. The lights hanging in the trees, the flowers bursting all around, the party that must have been so, so lovely, just hours ago. Vacated now, decorations forlorn, music still playing, and she gripped his gate as they entered, leaned against it, stopped to listen.

“I missed our wedding,” she said.

“Why do you think I went looking for you, sweetheart?” he said, squeezing her hand where he held it, gripping the gate next to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, small. “I, I didn’t mean to miss it, I was just trying to-”

“I know,” he said, hands moving up to her shoulders. “I know. The spring is … you said it’d been sending you nightmares. I think it’s been … trying to reach you. But we’re here, now. We’re here.”

She shivered, suddenly, the afternoon air dropping to night, and he ushered them inside. She blinked at the green room as they entered, the french doors, the large mirror on the wall in front of her. Her reflection said nothing, now. Mere image of herself in a white gown; herself, nothing more. It was a relief, his _we’re here now_ suddenly real, palpable.

A table, just ahead, housed their cake. She walked up to it, touched the small groom that still sat upon its half-eaten tower.

He saw her brows furrow, looked at the cake. “Couldn’t let it go to waste,” he said.

“Where’s the bride?” she asked, hand hovering over the groom. 

He dug around in his pocket, pulled the small white figurine out, rejoined it next to the groom. She watched the motion, and thought.

“You said you made a deal,” she said. “For me. For … all this.”

He nodded. “You said you were marrying him, Belle. When you came to the spring. I wanted to be the one to marry you.”

She turned to stare at him. The room around them, so lush, so pretty. His face, the thing she’d taken such comfort in for so long. It made her reach up, touch his mouth, and he closed his eyes.

She touched his face, those eyes. “Who are you?”

“You keep asking me that,” he said, brows furrowing, frowning at her.

“You remembered some things … others, you didn’t.”

“The body has memories. Some memories. Not all of them.”

“The way you were acting, I thought, I feared you were a … copy.”

“No,” he said.

“So you’re here, and he’s … gone?”

“He wants to be,” he emphasized again, cupping her hands, trying to comfort.

But she frowned, shook her head. “How can I believe you? Any of this? How can I?”

And his brows furrowed, and he let out a shaky sigh, pursed his lips in frustration. “I’m frightening you,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

He gripped her shoulders, tilted his head at her. “You still don’t remember.”

She blinked at him. “Remember what?”

“I’ve been waiting, Belle. Waiting for you to remember.” He rubbed her shoulders again, let his eyes search her, let his throat swallow. “Has it never occurred to you to ask yourself - how did you know where to find me?”

“What?”

“When Mr. Gold failed to show for your first wedding. When you came to the spring. When you … pulled me out. After he went in. What prompted you to go to the spring?”

“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head, gripping his chest. “I don’t know.”

“Why did you always go to the spring? Why did you return?”

“I don’t know!”

“You truly don’t remember, Belle?”

He reached up to cup her face, opened his eyes wide for her to look into them. Their pretty brown that she loved so much, so warm and so keen for her, and she saw herself in them, suddenly. Herself, tucking her hair behind her, herself, her hand in the water. The faces, and she among them.

“I came from the spring, Belle,” he said. “And you did too. You came from the spring, too.”

Her lips parted, her hands opened.

“I made a deal, Belle. You did too.”

She started to shake again, face growing pale, but he gripped her firmer, kept her from falling.

“When the young woman came to the spring. So upset that her mother had died. She wanted to come in, and you wanted to come out.”

“Yes,” she said, eyes wide, and a world began to settle on her, a remembrance. “And you were supposed to follow, right after.”

“I did,” he said, desperate smile, his own eyes stinging. “Or … it felt like I did. Right after. Time is different, in the spring.” 

She stared at her hands, stared at her arms, and he pulled her into him, tried to quell her, absorb her shakes, her struggling breath. She gripped him back, tight, buried her face in his neck, mouth at his skin, grappling with her memory, her spirit, her body.

“Isn’t this good, Belle? To have a body, to touch?”

She nodded furiously into him, and he pulled back, hands smoothing her face again, her hair.

“Please. Please don’t cry. They’re where they want to be. We’re where we want to be.”

“I know,” she sobbed, holding him. “It’s all coming back. I know. It’s just, it’s just so much.”

He nodded vigorously, lip trembling despite himself, aching smile that his wet fell into. “Take all the time you need. I’m here. I’m here with you, now. Finally. Oh, Belle!”

They held each other, trembling, shaking, crying but grateful. Grateful for the things they could touch, when before, they couldn’t. Grateful for faces, grateful for arms, for fingers that could grip and hold and comfort and touch. Grateful for love, for touch.

“We’ll need another wedding,” she sniffed, after an eternity, offering him a small smile.

And he laughed. Into her hair, into her neck, arms around her, shaking but happy. Wide smile, eyes sparkling into hers. Laughed and laughed. 

“Third time’s a charm.”

**Three, an Epilogue, and The End**

Belle pressed her hand to his shop.

Splayed her hand across the glass, though her heat did little to fog up or display her print, the weather too nice to differ greatly from her own body temperature. Sunny day, gentle clouds rolling by, little to no wind. She smoothed her hair where it tumbled over her dress, white and pretty, low v down the front, new hem across her ankles, fixed up from where the forest had previously soiled the original. She looked and felt perfect for today, the sun reaching around behind, warming her back, seeming to agree. Perfect, yes. 

Perfect day for a wedding.

She splayed her hand and waited, looking between her fingers through the glass. Bright shop behind, and she could just see him finishing up, locking cases, organizing the till, adjusting his suit coat. He paused where he stood, suddenly. Turned, seeming to sense her presence, and she smiled.

He walked up to the door, brow raised at the sight of her hand, crooked smile making its way across his face. The strange one she loved so much, strange smile she couldn’t help returning. He put his own hand up, pressed it to the glass to mirror her, palm to palm, finger to finger, his eyes just beyond, crinkling down at her.

“Ready?” she said, when he opened the door.

“Ready,” he said, arms going around her, pulling her in for a kiss.

They made their way down to the small venue they’d chosen, planning to arrive together this time, no need to stoke the anxieties of their guests. Hand in hand, cheek to cheek if they could, ready to complete their deal, so long in the making.

“I’m ready,” he said, warm whisper in her ear as they entered, relieved cheers all around them.

“I’ve been ready for this my whole life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, hope you all enjoyed 🖤 I could have kept writing this forever, but I had a deadline to adhere to, sorry if the ending felt abrupt :( Happy RCIJ my babe, mareyshelley!


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